30 days of ShinRan
by impossibleorimprobable
Summary: His life and hers are entwined. They share days, months, years, hands out stretched, running toward each other on planes that never seem to touch. Moments build into a lifetime. 30 days of Shinran feelings. Will be fluffy most of the time. Each chapter is a oneshot. Prompts taken from the 100 themes challenge on dA
1. tenderly they turned to dust

**Day 1**

 **89\. Through the Fire**

 **366 words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

The courtyard is on fire and his head is on fire and he doesn't have much time. He can already feel the odd tingling in his limbs and the fuzzy film that seems to insert itself between the direct workings of his brain and the front of his mind, slowing his thoughts and lending a misted tint to his perception. Someone's yelling at him. He can feel the raised voice in his bones, the words pounding against his skull. Whatever Hattori's yammering on about, it's irrelevant. Ran lay just beyond the grass, cheek pressing into hard stone. Even with the smoke clogging up his mind he can tell the building she lay under will collapse any second. There isn't time to hesitate.

Vaguely, Shinichi's aware of the flames, nipping at him as he dashes across the ring of fire, and later, he'll chalk it up to the disassociation from his body turning back to Conan, but he doesn't feel the heat. He bends with the fluid motion that comes from urgency, but it is with utmost tenderness that he lifts her from the ground and cradles her to his chest. Ran's skin is hot to the touch, and her lashes flutter against her cheeks. He sweeps her out from underneath the collapsing building just in time, and allows himself a smile.

There's almost elegance in the way he picks his way back through the fire, like a kind of waltz. He lift

s Ran just beyond the reach of the golden flames still snaking up into the air, deftly side steps, weaving around the waves of heat rising, writhing, from the ground.

By the time he reaches the other side, Shinichi's shirtsleeves are burned through. It doesn't matter, because Ran, still in his arms, remains untouched. He barely has time to press a kiss to her temple-cool lips, warm skin-before he's suddenly swimming in his charred clothes, and Heiji, muttering "baka" under his breath repeatedly, plucks Conan Edogawa from the ground and gives him his glasses.

(That night he puts burn cream on his own wounds. By the time Ran wakes up, he has the bandaged limbs hidden under a crisp and less holey blazer.)


	2. games that never amount

**Day 2**

 **74\. Are you Challenging Me?**

 **899 words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

"I'm such a great detective," She puffed up her cheeks, hands on her hips, face red as she mimicked, "I can solve a murder in two seconds, but I know nothing about my best friend since childhood, because apparently I expected her not to remember what I looked like as a third grader, and disguised myself with glasses." She broke off to growl at him, "Glasses, Shinichi. Glasses."

He folded his arms, mischief glinting in his eyes. "Are you challenging me?"

Ran flushed and glowered. "So what if I am?"

Since his return to adulthood, they'd fallen back to old habits, dancing around each other in an endless battle of wits and words. If anything, the bickering grew worse. Both were good at hiding their true motivations behind smiles and scowls and biting remarks before, and were even better at it now for the year and a half Shinichi spent as didn't talk about London, or the things Ran said when she didn't know who he was.

He wasn't quite himself, nor was she. Both needed space. Both needed time. Both upheld an unspoken agreement, that no matter how slow they take to grow back together, they'll never hurt the other again.

Shinichi grinned, leaning forward on his elbows. "Fire away then."

Ran bit her lip. "When's my birthday?"

He rolled his eyes, sighing. "Really?"

She bristled. "Fine. What's my favorite color?"

"Red."

"Favorite flower?"

"Magnolias."

"Favorite food?"

"That disgusting onigiri from the shop at the corner of your street. I think there must be something wrong with your tastebuds. That abomination is 90% grease."

Ran faltered. "It's tasty, ok?"

He made a face, thinking back to all the times he'd been forced to eat it as Conan when Ran had been gone, and Detective Mouri couldn't be bothered.

"These are all things that require very little deduction," Ran interrupted his thoughts. She had put her hands on her hips again. "I'm not letting you off the hook this easily."

He shrugged, lopsided grin still spread across his face. "You're the one asking questions."

"When did I get up this morning?"

"9:00. Like you usually do on weekends."

"Do I like cats or dogs better?"

"You say cats, but you love both anyway."

"What's my favorite hobby?"

"Well, you do enjoy beating people up with your karate...but, origami. It soothes you." He remembered the amount of cranes Ran had folded the first few weeks of his disappearance, and the bouquet of paper flowers she'd brought to the hospital after he had finally defeated the black organization. He'd tried to imagine it then, her shaking fingers smoothing over the creases in the paper, over the tear stains and smudged ink, again and again and again, until edges that were once rough blossomed into flowers.

There was almost triumph in her voice the next time she opened her mouth. "Who is my best friend?"

"Sonoko." He replied without hesitation. She gaped at him like a fish. "Don't look so surprised." He leaned back, cushioning his head with his arms. "Your trick question wasn't too tricky. The very fact that you asked it meant that I'm not it."

Ran sputtered and did not speak for a long while. Then with one of the fiercer looks she's worn, she leveled an accusing finger at him. " Final question." Her voice shook just a little, hoarse and barely above a whisper. "Who do I like?"

"Hmm." Shinichi tapped his chin. "Is it Eisuke-kun? He wanted to whisk you away to America, you know."

Ran sank onto the couch, groaning.

He turned a stern eye to her. "You can't still be in love with Araide-san. He's older than you. Your father disapproves and I disapprove even more."

Flushing red, she was now making high pitched whale noises of protest as she ground her head into the throw pillow with startling ferocity. It made him pity her, vaguely. But Shinichi Kudou could be a cruel, cruel man.

He pretended to think some more. "It can't be Hattori. That's gross. It's like, incest."

"No!" She was out of breath and her hair was a mess around her face. Her indignance lined every word. "No! You're wrong. You're a terrible detective-"

"Or," he cut her off, closing the distance between them in a few great, long strides, effectively trapping her against the sofa seat she had been misusing a moment ago. Letting the devious smirk he'd been keeping hidden emerge, he leaned into her. "Is it me?"

For a long time neither spoke. Both were thinking. Both were gauging. Both looked at the other like if they'd stopped for even just a second the other would vanish from the planes of reality itself.

And then Ran looked away, averted her gaze as she tilted her head and leaned up to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. "Ok, so you're not _that_ bad of a detective."

He couldn't help the smirk that was tugging at his lips. "Damn right, I'm not."

So they sat closer after that, his fingers entwined in hers, knees bumping, feet tangled. They were entitled. And if they stayed like that, her head tucked under his, his arm around her shoulder, and as the afternoon progressed they two slipped into blissful slumber, warm, and safe, and together, no one breathed a word.

Well. At least until Kogoro Mouri got home.


	3. walking the long road

**Day 3**

 **35\. Hold My Hand**

 **3318 words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

The very first time she stuck her hand (pudgy little fingers, pink and wriggling) at him, he hadn't quite known what to do. At the age of seven his parents had prepared him for almost anything-where to kick if someone bigger than him was going to beat him up, how to talk to teachers when asking for help, what to do if a stranger wants to make conversation-but not this. They hadn't taught him what to do when a girl-a friend-was scrunching up her face in fear, shaking a little in the moonlight, shoving her hand at him like her life depended on it.

Good thing Shinichi had always been good at playing by ear.

He had reached out hesitantly, wrapping his fingers around hers, not entirely sure if this was what she wanted. Others at school had been worried about cooties. He'd known they didn't exist, but did Ran?

Shinichi snuck a glance at Ran. She was clutching tight at his hand, firmly looking ahead, small frame held rigid as she trembled. He realized he was probably overthinking this. She was afraid-like the average 7 year old would be if they'd been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to confront a "ghost" in the library of their school.

Inwardly he sighed. If she was going to be like this every time, he'd have to stop taking her on his cases. After all, he needed both hands to solve mysteries. She couldn't expect to occupy one hand every time she got scared.

* * *

She told him, biting her lip and holding back tears one night, that her parents fought nearly every day now. Shinichi had deduced as much from the frequency with which she'd snuck into his second floor bedroom. His parents were rarely home now, traveling around the world doing whatever it is they did, so he was left alone, capable to do nearly anything at his own leisure. Almost every other night she would come to his window, and when he let her in she'd look at him with wary, red-rimmed eyes, and too often it would be noon of the next day before her parents would notice she'd been gone.

He didn't ask her about it, because it seemed like everyone else did. Pointed questions from teachers and students alike drove Ran to tears. For a while it seemed like nobody was above making a fifth grader cry just to get the gist of what was going on.

He took to walking her to class, to walking her home, to standing behind her and glaring at anyone who so much breathed her parents' names. Shinichi decided he could protect her from pointed words.

But he couldn't protect her from careless ones.

They were walking into the classroom one morning, like usual. She was telling him something not particularly interesting about the field trip scheduled for the day, and he had been half listening, making humming noises and nodding where appropriate, hands in his pockets, when suddenly her breath caught in her chest and her voice died in her throat.

The silence jarred him from his thoughts and he looked up to find three guilty faces looking back at them, and Ran beside him，holding her breath and trying not to cry again.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Shinichi was grabbing her hand and tearing her away, dragging her into a run that ripped the breath from their lungs. When they finally stopped, they were on a street neither recognized, but neither exactly cared. Breathing hard, faces red, the two of them slowed to a walk, hands still joined.

"You know," he said, as the thought occurred to him. "You really are a watering pot."

"I know." She admitted, pointedly looking anywhere but him.

Shinichi rolled his eyes. Ran turned away. But neither let go of the other's hand. In this strange city they knew so well, and yet so little of, two frightened, lonely, and just a little broken ten year olds wandered, connected to the world and to each other only through the space between their fingers.

The sun was setting when they finally managed to find their way home. "Home." Funny really. There was no dispute about whose house they were going to, and in the end neither of them bothered. The room they ended up in could have been the living room in the Kudo Mansion. It could've been the one in the Mouri residence. It didn't matter, because it was _theirs._ There was no doubt that her parents wouldn't come for her tonight. There was no doubt that his parents wouldn't call.

Unbeknownst to the two of them, the world had constricted, until there was nothing but his hand in hers, sitting in silence, doing homework and eating junk food, Ran Mouri and Shinichi Kudo against the world as the sun set in the far east, as the day was done and all they had was each other to come home to.

(Later, when she reached out hesitantly, he looked her in the eye and smiled. And he didn't say it out loud, but he made a promise to himself, with the kind of unbendable conviction he reserved only for truths.)

* * *

The serial murder case was particularly tough, and secretly, he'd been trying to solve it for about a week, resulting in his disappearance from school for that same amount of time, and he would have kept going at it, too, if Inspector Megure hadn't insisted someone take him home after he had passed out on top of the evidence.

Shinichi should've known, really. Who else was there to call?

He came to on the ground. They didn't have anything to lay him down on, on site, so they'd left him spread out on the sidewalk beyond the yellow caution tape. When he startled awake, still grumbling the last half-baked deduction his sleep deprived and dehydrated brain had been trying to make, Ran was sitting on the gravelly road beside him, her jacket folded into a pillow, tucked under his head.

When his vision had focused on her, glaring at him, tapping her foot with her arms folded, just beyond the police tape, he'd offered her a sheepish smile, and sluggishly slid his hand toward her. She rolled her eyes, and threaded her fingers between his, tugging him up and under the tape.

"You," She dragged him toward her car, grounding her teeth, and he felt a little bit bad about making her come all the way out here just to pick him up. "Are going to take a shower, eat dinner, and sleep like a normal human being for once."

He mumbled something about the case, punctuated with a yawn. The hand in his twitched and flexed, and she stopped and turned to regard him with dark, serious eyes.

"Shinichi," She said, very simply.

He knew what she meant. He stared at her anyway. His half-awake brain couldn't quite decide if it was in defiance or if it was because she was really very pretty.

Wait. Had he really just thought that? Shinichi sighed and deflated. Privately, he'd decided that he was probably so tired he'd begun to hallucinate.

He let Ran lead him away, tuck him into the back seat with a blanket and a bottle of water. She plucked his glasses off his nose too, before settling down behind the wheel, still grumbling about his health habits as she started the car and pulled onto the road.

Ran had only just gotten her license, but she was already a more reliable driver than Shinichi, or, god forbid, her father. He watched her through already drooping eyelids, comprehending her fierce tirade only vaguely as he drifted off and came to and drifted off again.

He caught something in between one of these drifts, however, and at this piece of new information, he sat up, eyes widening nearly instantaneously. "Ran," he said, trying to clear his already locked up throat, "What did you say?"

"That you're going to land yourself in the hospital one day?" She looked up, startled, at him, through the center rearview mirror.

"No, idiot, before that."

"Oi! Watch who you're calling an idiot!"

"You were saying something about it being summer?"

"Huh? Oh yeah...I was telling you that the news station said the heat waves started yesterday, and you need to stay hydrated so you don't-"

"That's it-" He cut her off, leaping out of the blanket pile, "I know who the murderer is! We have to go back!"

"Shinichi-?" She let out a surprised yell as he climbed from the black seat and turned the wheel so that the car, screeching and swerving on the empty road, turned the other direction.

"Ran," he said softly in the silence, fingers covering hers. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

And then Ran bit down hard on her lip, and slammed down on the gas pedal. The car shot forward, the other direction, and Shinichi, shedding the blankets completely, climbed into the front.

"You're too old to be doing that, you know." She said, not looking at him in favor of keeping an eye on the road.

"I know," he said, looking straight ahead as well, eyes already darkening as he settled into the passenger seat.

His hand still covered hers on the steering wheel.

* * *

He didn't get a chance to reevaluate. There wasn't time. Shinichi Kudo disappeared into hurried, distant phone calls, and Edogawa Conan melded seamlessly into Ran's life.

Sometimes when he missed speaking to her and being spoken to like himself, he hid himself away and called. It was surprisingly easy to pretend, though, on most days. He learned to replace the idea of himself even in his most private thoughts with Conan's identity.

Lies blended into truth, and he lost a piece of Shinichi Kudo each day he remained a four foot tall squirt. Not everything had changed. He still solved cases. It seemed that crime was waiting for him at every turn. So he was a first grader with a genius intellect. What else was new? His identity hadn't changed. It was just a matter of trying to contain it this time, to pretend he knew less than he did. Which, even as an adult, he had already had a habit of doing.

There came a day he thought he could be Edogawa Conan forever. Escape from the black organization and his impending doom breathing down his back. Start anew. Wipe the slate clean and redo it all. Maybe become a different person. He could do the things he didn't get to do the first time, fix things that he didn't get to fix.

But then she called.

She always called when he was least expecting it, when the days had run together and he could never be quite sure if it was Shinichi that was living a lie or if it was Conan.

His voice, his words came from a thousand miles away, but he was physically sitting, back to the wall, where, if he turned his head he could see her bowed over the phone, looking out the window, and he could imagine tears in her eyes even as he heard the barely audible wavering in her voice.

Ran told him stories. The cases they'd been on while he'd been "away." She told him about school, about the soccer team, about her father finding the neighbor's missing cat and how that seemed to be the only case where her father didn't have to fall asleep to figure it out.

When she spoke to him it was like nothing was wrong with the world, even though everything was.

" _When are you coming home?"_ She always asked, at the end of every call, pulling him back to reality.

" _Soon,"_ He promised, like he always promised, because he realized now that somewhere along the way home became much less about physical location and much more about the fact that they were _together_. And whether he was Shinichi Kudo or Edogawa Conan he'd made a promise, years and years ago, to himself and her.

He would always hold her hand.

Maybe he was Edogawa Conan. Maybe he would be Edogawa Conan for a long time. But for her, always for her, he was Shinichi Kudo.

* * *

A month after he took down the black organization, he showed up on her doorstep. He would have come earlier, had he not been in the hospital, but physical therapy had been hell and he'd only recently reclaimed the ability to use his legs, after an entire building collapsed on him due to some well placed bombs and Gin's inability to go down without taking someone with him.

They told him Ran had come to keep vigil by his bedside almost every day when he was in his coma, but disappeared the moment he woke up. Shinichi figured he probably deserved it. He had been lying to her for over a year and a half. He imagined he wasn't high on the list of people she wanted to see. So he'd asked everyone. He didn't have to see her, just yet, but he wanted to know she was alright.

Heiji and Kazuha knew nothing. Sonoko hadn't seen her. He was so desperate he'd gone to the junior detective league, and even sought out the newly recovered Ai Haibara-well, it was Shiho Miyano now-but no one had seen Ran since she'd disappeared from the hospital. She wasn't at the Mouri Detective Agency either.

Admittedly, Shinichi was worried. If she needed her space, that was fine. But what if the black organization wasn't destroyed as they thought? What if he'd missed a few key members, and they were the ones who had Ran? What if-

He would've gone to Inspector Megure and filed a missing person's report if Kogoro Mouri hadn't taken pity on him and told him that Ran had hidden herself away with her mother, Eri.

He had visibly deflated, breathing out a sigh of relief, and Kogoro Mouri had patted him on the back almost sympathetically and told him that he screwed up.

Really stating the obvious there. Shinichi knew Ran better than anyone. They'd grown up joined at the hip after all. When Ran got angry, really angry, the kind of angry that left her used up and empty, she didn't speak to anyone. She locked herself away. Sometimes it lasted for a few hours. Other times several weeks in a row.

He kept his distance.

That is, until Eri called.

He picked up the phone one night, expecting it to be anyone else-but it was Ran's mother.

"Shinichi," She sounded haggard and gave no preamble. "You have to come talk to Ran."

"Is she alright?" He'd demanded into the phone.

"She hasn't left the house since she came back from the hospital. She doesn't speak much either. I thought she's just having one of her fits-the ones she used to have as a child-but a month is too long, especially in the light of these events."

"...do you think talking will help?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have called."

He hung up and was at Eri's apartment within the hour, at a loss as to what to do. Shinichi finally settled for ringing the doorbell. Surprisingly enough, the door opened, and Ran's face appeared in the doorframe.

For a moment, neither spoke.

"You." Ran managed to get out.

"Me," He agreed, gravely. "May I come in?" Wordlessly, she stepped aside.

He followed her as she led the way to the kitchen, sat down and watched as she made tea. They both drew back as if shocked when their fingers brushed as she handed him a mug.

"I'm sorry," he said, after a long silence.

Now that the silence was broken, he didn't have a plan. Shinichi was flying by the seat of his pants and it was terrifying, more terrifying than all the times he'd rushed headlong into danger without a second thought, because Ran is here and Ran is real and for the first time in months and months and months she sees straight through him and he straight through her.

She looked at him. He explained it. All of it. And after he was done he sat, silent, waiting.

It was like a tennis court. He'd served the ball to her. It was her turn to hit it back.

She looked up at him with tired eyes. "You let me think you were gone for a year and a half."

Love, fifteen.

"I had to make sure you were safe."

"You could have trusted me."

Love, thirty.

"I did. I do. I didn't want to risk it."

"How hard would it have been, Shinichi? I waited and I waited and I waited and I broke my own heart waiting...you were always there..." Tears were glistening in her eyes.

Love, forty. He expected yelling and karate, but not her angry tears.

"I'm sorry." He was right back where he started. Back to the wall, no right choice out of the multitude. No choice at all. Tell her, get her killed. Don't tell her, kill her inside anyway.

0-1. Love is zero.

He let out a soft gasp of shock when she reached across the table to cover his hand with hers.

"Some part of me always knew. But I didn't want to know." Her voice was soft, and she looked anywhere but at him. "I thought you'd tell me some day. I wanted to hear it from you." A wavering chuckle. "But _they_ were the ones who told me who you were. The nurses at the hospital. Edogawa Conan. Shinichi Kudo. And when I got there...when I got there..." Ran cut herself off with a fierce swipe at her own eyes, "you're always running off on your own. Always, always on your own. Didn't it occur to you….? Wasn't that first time enough?"

"I made a promise."

"To keep me safe. You think I didn't make that same promise to myself?" She raised their linked hands. "I promised….I promised I would always hold your hand."

"You did. You do."

"You sat outside the door while I was dismantling a bomb. I wasn't within a ten mile radius when a building came down on your head."

Shinichi stood up with a strange, determined look in his eye. She watched him almost lethargically as he lifted her hand slowly, pressing a kiss to her wrist.

"You come with me even if you're afraid." He said decidedly. He pressed a kiss to her hair. "You stick by me when no one else does."

Ran's body shook with the force of the sob that tore from her throat as she pulled him toward her, their hands still entwined. "Shinichi, I'm so-" she managed to get out as she curled her free hand into the material of his suit jacket.

He kissed her forehead, and then her tearstained cheek. "You tell me when enough is enough. You find me when I lose my way."

Tucked into him, Ran was murmuring "baka" again and again into his shirt collar.

"And," he added quietly, like it was a miracle, voice barely above a whisper as he leaned in to press his lips against hers. "You love me."

They make each other, and themselves, a new promise, and, being both of them quite vocal, nobody's really surprised when the detective and the black belt walked into the police station hand in hand the next time a mysterious body showed up.

Although it did lead Inspector Megure to wonder.

Was there a fraternization policy for consultants?


	4. blink back to let me know

**Day 4**

 **86\. Seeing Red**

 **1672 words**

 **Rating: K+ (for swearing)**

* * *

Heiji was having a loud mental argument with himself about the pros and cons of letting his mother know that the next Kid heist was going to be at a black tie affair. On the one hand, he was stuck in a suffocating tux that pulled a little too tight across the shoulders, hat and boots confiscated, for the entire night. But, on the other hand, quite literally, too, since she had tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, Kazuha was in a shimmering green dress, hair spilling over her shoulder in glossy dark ringlets.

Ok, that was probably bad, too, now that it actually registered in his head. Maybe his mother was in league with Kid and decided dolling Kazuha up was a suitable distraction (which, it was).He couldn't keep his eyes off her, which meant that Shinichi was alone in watching for the Phantom Thief tonight. Although, now that the other detective had been returned to normal and became more or less the shadow of a certain young woman, he wasn't really too sure about the effectiveness there either.

Not that there was really a point to this venture. It's been some years and countless heists. No one's caught Kid yet. Besides, the place was crawling with the police. Megure and Nakamori were here, along with countless others of various departments. Business wise, Heiji was only here to provide an extra pair of eyes and some insight on security measures or predicted escape routes. Aside from that, he didn't really have much to do, which, in his case, probably meant that Kazuha would be holding him prisoner on the dance floor for the evening (not that he was complaining).

And that was why he'd expected Shinichi wouldn't be leaving Ran's side for the entire night. He didn't have any reason to-unless someone was stupid enough to commit murder in front of the entire Tokyo police force. This assumption accounted for the surprise with which Heiji had greeted the other detective at the the refreshments table in the corner, when, half way through the fifth dance, Kazuha ran off to giggle with Sonoko.

Shinichi, for his part, was doing what could be best described as "brooding" in silence. Which, of course, he hadn't done since the last time he was four foot tall, held the biggest secret in the universe and couldn't brood out loud.

Heiji, with his (definitely-better-than-Shinichi's) detective skills, had noticed that the other was backed up against the table, huffing into a glass of punch and glowering at a point on the other side of the room, cutting a path straight through the dance floor with the intensity of his death glare.

Logically, Heiji took a look for himself.

 _Ah._ He suppressed a smirk and patted his friend's shoulder as a gesture of sympathy.

Beyond the swirl of fancy gowns and graceful tuxedos, Ran was talking rather animatedly with a taller gentleman who was leaning down to her, back turned to the boys. She seemed to be enjoying herself, giggling or flushing every couple of seconds at something he said.

A month and a half since Shinichi's "recovery," things had returned to normal. Too normal. Which meant, in simpler terms, that the fact that he and Ran were _the best of friends_ was the reason she had given when she'd agreed to show up at the Kid heist as his "date" for the evening. Shinichi half suspected the reason she'd even conceded to coming at all was because she took pity on him. After all, having spent a year and a half of being a first grader and losing touch with the majority of the people he knew, he didn't exactly have anyone else to take to the affair. More importantly, he didn't _want_ to take anyone else.

Not that she knew that.

Which is why he hated that he was angry in the first place. Ran didn't do anything wrong. She could do whatever she wanted. She was _happy_ (like she hadn't been for so long, because of him).

If there was anyone to blame, it was himself. Stupid Shinichi and his stupid big brain being too stupid to comprehend his own emotions in time. But that knowledge didn't cease producing the dull ache in his chest or the odd, displaced feeling at the pit of his stomach that made him just a little sick as he looked on, and the newly discovered self loathing drove him to the corner to lick his wounds.

The worst thing was the fact that Shinichi could deduce everything that was wrong with the man. He was a player, judging by the practiced ease with which he charmed women. Before approaching Ran, Shinichi had seen him try at least two others. And he had nimble fingers that didn't always stay where they belonged-he stole champagne off of his previous marks. Not a grievous offense, but still. The fact that he was old enough to drink also sent warning bells ringing in his brain.

Not that it had anything to do with him, or should have anything to do with him.

Shinichi wanted to smack himself upside the head.

Deductions were always objective. They were meant to be anyway, but Shinichi couldn't very well think at that moment, let alone remove his own feelings from the equation.

"Still haven't made a move yet, huh?" Heiji broke the silence, elbowing Shinichi in the ribs with a conspiratory wink.

Shinichi turned the withering glare to his Osakan friend.

"You know, you should probably do something about this before he asks her to dance."

Shinichi growled audibly into his punch.

"Does all that devil may care attitude go down the drain when you're not on a case?"

Stubborn silence.

"Come on. You're not really going to stay silent forever," Heiji folded his arms, leaning to the side with a smug grin on his face. "My sources tell me you were a lot more vocal in London."

Several things happened all at once. Shinichi's face went beet red and Heiji's shirt, the crisp white shirt that he had been made to launder and then press with the utmost care by two very nit-picky women, became the exact same shade of violent crimson, because Shinichi had, most _definitely_ on accident, dumped the contents of the entire glass of punch down the front of Heiji's best (and very expensive) tuxedo.

Heiji sputtered, leaping away, dripping punch every which way, "What the hell?"

"Screw it," Almost as if not having heard his friend, Shinichi hissed to himself under his breath.

"What was that? Wait-Oi, get back here you bastard!" Despite Heiji's protests, Shinichi took off, leaving his Osakan friend, still dripping, to stare at his receding back as he made his way through the dance floor, weaving through dancing couples in the middle of the song.

"...Great," Heiji muttered after a long pause, dabbing at his shirt with a wad of napkins and quite a bit of reluctant acceptance that his head will be on a spike by the end of the evening. He watched as Shinichi elbowed the man who had been chatting up Ran out of the way and pulled her aside. They had a hurried, whispered exchange, in which the full emotional spectrum seemed to show on Ran's face-annoyance at first, confusion, shock, happiness-her face was tomato red by the time Shinichi had, grinning crookedly, swept her an exaggerated bow and asked her to dance.

Really? The prick took his advice but also ambushed him with punch? Heiji was planning in his head exactly how he was going to exact revenge when Kazuha returned. She took one look at him and facepalmed, muttering "ahou" furiously under her breath, ignoring Heiji's very vocal protest that he definitely didn't deserve this, it wasn't even his fault this time.

"So," Heiji said awkwardly after Kazuha finished her rant, "Since I kind of have to change….want to get out of here and get some okonomiyaki?"

She paused, blinking at him, as if gauging what he was thinking. Heiji fought to keep the grin off his face. He knew she usually gauged how he was feeling by the way he was wearing his hat.

"Don't you have to stay for the heist?"

"Nah," he said with a shrug, sneaking a glance over at the dance floor, "Kudou'll keep an eye on it."

Said detective of the east was shifting slowly to a love song on the dance floor, completely lost in his partner's eyes. Their foreheads were pressed together and they were smiling and blushing and their arms were so tangled Heiji wasn't really sure who's arm belonged to who. Not that he wanted to find out. Or look longer than necessary. If he's honest, it was a little bit disgusting.

Privately, he came to the conclusion that, excepting an update in his relationship status, it was unlikely Shinichi Kudou was going to get anything else done tonight.

Heiji allowed a smirk to manifest at his lips. Add wingman to the list of things that he was very, very good at.

"...Ok, I guess," Kazuha had taken his arm again, stirring him out of his (very smug) thoughts.

"Let's go then!" He grinned down at her, and they made their way out of the dance hall.

The two of them were already clear outside when the gentleman who had been flirting with Ran disappeared into a puff of smoke near the refreshments table, knocking over the punch bowl and spilling the entirety of it onto a poor unsuspecting youth in a white tuxedo (served him right for stealing Kaito's signature suit!), and Kaitou Kid appeared in his place.

Shinichi and Ran were, needless to say, too busy staring into each other's eyes to care.

In fact, they didn't even notice when a girl who looked suspiciously like Ran with spiky hair dashed past them, brandishing a mop and yelling obscenities at Kid that would've made criminals blush.


	5. i'm cutting my mind off

**Day 5**

 **88\. Pain**

 **2078 words**

 **Rating: T+ (For violence/gore. I wouldn't read this if you have any triggers/an aversion to blood)**

 **A/N: Hello y'all! First author's note, yay! Anyway just wanted to warn you ahead of time that this is super angsty :P There's like, hints of fluff here and there because I couldn't bring myself not to write some in, but like, the prompt is "pain" after all...We'll be back to regularly scheduled shortly, but this one's dark!**

* * *

Harsh light is beating against his eyelids. There's something he's missing, but he can't put his finger on it. His mind is blessedly blank. He doesn't want to know what he's missing.

He doesn't want to know it anymore. He doesn't want to know his name.

 _His name._

...Shinichi Kudou? No-no-no-he's not Shinichi Kudou-please-he's not-he's not-he's-

He lurches off the gurney, the sob already tearing out of his throat.

The coppery taste of blood in the air and the scent of putrid rot drifts between his dry, cracked lips. His stomach lurches and he grasps at something, anything-

"Interesting." Someone in a white lab coat is watching from beyond the glass. "Give him another one. I want to see what it's doing to his brain patterns."

He almost passes out when the second shock comes. Something sticky is oozing from his nose, making its way in rivulets to his lips. He's aware his breaths are coming in frantic gasps, the air catching on his vocal cords producing low pitched whining noises that sounds pathetic even to his own ears.

"He keeps changing back and forth," someone remarks. "The handcuffs won't work like that."

Their voices drift in and out of his ears. Comprehension is near impossible.

"Better make note of it. I'd deliver another shock, but I'm afraid if he keeps twitching, he'll tear the wires out..."

"...we'll just nail him down next time..."

The third shock rips the screams out of his throat. Bile rises, flooding into his mouth and he chokes, gagging, but then someone slaps him hard across the face. The world spins.

He hits the gurney and he thinks it ought to hurt more. He feels it numbly, like through a barrier.

"Careful," a voice is saying, although he can't make out the specific figure anymore. Colors blurred at the edges like paint on a canvas. "We don't want him flatlining."

Shinichi's unconscious by the time they give him the fourth shock.

 _Take stock. What's happened?_

 _Given that they'd hit him-he remembers glass flying everywhere when the butt of a gun was driven into his face-he was Conan. They know then. Edogawa Conan. Shinichi Kudou._

 _Given that they shoved him into the back of the van, taken him here-_

 _They have him._

 _He's drifting._

How long has he been here? A day? A month? A year?

"I know you can hear me, Kudou."

Gin.

 _Someone's humming. It sounds like her._

"I see. You need a little persuasion."

 _He wants to call out-wants to say her name, beyond that, wants to tell her to run-but there are fingers around his throat-he thinks maybe they're his own-long, slender, strong, closing._

Gin's reaching into the dark for something.

Shinichi struggles-he thinks he might be screaming profanities but in all reality he's not quite sure what is streaming from his mouth-Gin awards him with a smirk as he - _God, please, no-_ and pain explodes in his bones-Shinichi can't see anymore, he might be crying, he might have passed out again-he might be-

"...don't kill him yet…." "...the tests might be done...but the boss wants to know…."

"...we can get Miyano later…." "...what about the others…?"

Something wet is oozing from -he can't see, but it's growing cold. He's not dead. It isn't over yet.

He has to fight to keep his eyes open. The world around him is spinning.

 _Given that this is real…question: how does he get out?_

There's so much red, everywhere. It's on his hair, dripping into his eyes, drying against his cheek, against his side, running down the creases of his palm and between his fingers.

 _Her favorite color._

"Tell me who knows." There it is again.

 _Answer: he doesn't._

 _"When are you coming home?" her voice is in his ear, as clear as if she were in the room-he hasn't spoken to her like this since-_

 _Soon. Never. Soon. Never. Soon. He tries to answer but he can't force the sound past his cracked lips._

 _"Which is it?"_

 _He doesn't know. God, he doesn't know anymore._

"I'll die first," he spits out the blood in his mouth.

A smile spreads slowly across Gin's face. "I was hoping you would say that."

He bends to retrieve a tray, setting it on top of a silver trolley. An array of sharp, glistening tools lie across a velvety cushion.

"You see," Gin watches Shinichi's face as he runs over the devices with loving care, "I have a _personal_ score to settle with you, Kudou."

Time runs together.

 _What's your name?_

He can't move.

 _Who knows about what happened?_

Shinichi closes his eyes and he grits his teeth and he becomes stone.

 _Does your father….? ...mother?...friends…?_

He thinks he must have died because the pain fades after that.

Shinichi doesn't know how long he's out for, but when he wakes up again, he's alone. There is gunfire in the distance-the far distance.

The handcuffs don't chafe his wrists anymore. He slips them off and notices a beat late that he's not Shinichi anymore. His limbs are shorter-maybe-they're shifting under the light, stretching and shrinking and stretching and shrinking-

He sits up lethargically and his eyes wander. His surroundings give him clues as to how he's still alive. Bloodied torture tools are sitting haphazardly on the tray on a table. A gun is balanced there too-Gin must have left hastily-no time to put a bullet in Shinichi's brain, not even enough time to take the gun prepared for the execution.

He slips off the bed and nearly collapses. Shinichi manages to keep himself upright, and has to bite back a shout of pain. The blood on him has dried, mostly, a deep crimson against the blue of his blazer. There's a wound on the back of his head, and his face is covered in 's dizzy-but he can see where he's going, and that is enough.

There are bloody patterns running up his arm-nearly scabbing. He doesn't want to look at his legs or the number Gin had done on them-swing, drag, swing, drag-there are broken bones, uneven jagged gashes trailing from his knees to his ankles. He can see the pieces of patellar peeking through skin.

Shinichi tries to keep the bile down as he realizes he'll most likely never play soccer again.

Right now it doesn't matter. Right now, he has to focus on finding his way home. Take stock. What can he work with?

They've taken most of Agasa's gadgets off him, leaving only his bow tie and his shoes. Knowing Gin, they probably expect to pry it off his cold, dead body later. Neither is of much use now that he can barely stand.

Every step is like walking on knives. Shinichi bites so hard down on his lip that blood sprouts where teeth meet flesh.

He thinks of Ran as he drags himself over to the trolley and leans on it, hobbling out of the room (and god, it _hurts_ but he promised _her_ he'll come _home)_ and snatching Gin's gun off the table. He goes down the hall. Toward the gunfire. If he's been missing for as long as he thinks he has been, she'll be worried out of her mind, and he shouldn't make her worry any more.

He goes toward the sound of the fighting. An enemy of an enemy and all that.

He makes it to what must have been the entrance (he can see the stars already, feel the cool night air on his cheek) before he can hear the shouting. A bullet whizzes past, grazing his ear. He melts into the shadow when he sees a shadow approaching, leans his weight against the wall, propping himself half up to cock the gun he'd been holding.

He can't fight now. His chances of survival lie in a well aimed shot, perhaps, and even then the recoil could tear his shoulder out of its socket.

"Shinichi?" It's her voice.

He leans over the boulder to check.

His brain is too fuzzy for him to try to figure out if this is really Ran Mouri, standing before him in a bulletproof vest, or if it's Vermouth playing a cruel trick.

He raises the bowtie to his lips anyway. "Ran….tell me something only I could know."

Her head snaps toward him. She sounds confused. "Your very first case….when we were both very little...we saw that sunset on the rooftop and hid that note behind the phantom thief book. Shinichi, what's going on?"

Shinichi suppresses a sob of relief. He wants to go to her, throw himself into her arms and tell her it's finally over, feel her strength against him, safe and warm and _home._ But at the same time he wants to yell at her to go far away from here. He'd left her a note as himself, yes, in hopes that he would manage to take the organization down before nightfall and be back, his normal self, by dinner time.

But obviously that hasn't worked out.

How Ran has figured out what happened-and then managed to convince the police force, let alone her father, to let her come is beyond him.

"Shinichi, are you there?"

He hums in reply. His head is fuzzy. The world is spinning too much.

She takes a step in his direction. His heart leaps into his throat- _she can't know-if she knows-god if she knows-_

"Don't come any closer-" The words pour out before he can stop them, before he can consider whether he wants to stop them.

Ran stops. She regards the puddle she has stepped in with trepidation. When she looks up again, her voice wavers. "Shinichi...are you hurt? There's blood….everywhere."

"Don't worry about me," he swallows the lump in his throat and plunges on. He has to say it before he can't-he can't-"Ran, you shouldn't be here."

"I had to come…when I told Hattori-kun, he said you were in danger…I couldn't find Conan-kun anywhere either and I just-" she cuts herself off. "Anyway. Megure has a SWAT team surrounding the building. They're engaging right now, so I snuck along in uniform...I had to find you...Shinichi, we should go. I'm sure the inspector could handle it and you need to see a doctor-"

Something's not right. This is too easy. Gin's nature doesn't allow for loose ends-the black organization is nonexistent. Gin would never allow the chance, even the slightest chance that anyone could survive to be captured by the police, to testify otherwise. If this is a fight to the death, and if the organization is cornered…

 _Shit._

"Ran," he interrupts in a low voice. "You have to get out of here."

"Clear!" An officer is shouting in the distance. The force is advancing. The sound of gunfire drained into silence.

"I don't understand. Shinichi, it's over-""

He's swaying on his feet because it hurts too goddamn much to stay upright-"Ran, listen to me. Get out _now_."

"I'm not leaving without you-"

There's no time.

He assesses his choices. And then he's gritting his teeth and letting go of the bowtie, reaching down to turn on his shoes.

And then he's running.

Shinichi can feel ligaments tearing, bones knocking into each other, screaming in every ounce of his body that _this is not a good idea_ but he doesn't give a damn.

He sees her face again. Maybe there are tears in her eyes, maybe there aren't. There's shock written across her face.

" _Shin-ichi_?"

He leaps.

Maybe he'll never say all the things he should have said. Maybe he has to break his promise. If so, he hopes that this moment is enough.

Shinichi Kudo-Edogawa Conan-him in his truest forms, in the very core of who he is-barrels into Ran Mouri, catching her straight in the middle.

She loses her balance, eyes wide as she stumbles back through the doorway-and then somewhere someone is shouting "BOMB -" but it's already too late and a thunderous crack rumbles through the ground beneath them-

The heat hits him before the grit does. There are tears running down Ran's face, a few feet away.

Shinichi thinks it's funny, because he can't feel the pain anymore.

He's not sure if the building or his eyelids go down first.


	6. darling if you love me

**A/N: Super fluff in a honor of valentine's day? Yup. You betcha. Shinichi and Ran say the words but Shinichi's a big stupid :P Ran loves him anyway.**

 **Day 6**

 **64\. Multitasking**

 **1552 words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

Her father's driving out of town on a business trip, and as neither Ran nor Shinichi has the time to walk the distance between the Mouri Detective Agency and the Kudou mansion every morning, it has been decided that Shinichi was going to stay over for a few days.

The two have been basically inseparable since Shinichi's return to adulthood anyway and so it is with nothing but a sigh and a harrumph that Kogoro Mouri agrees to the whole affair. He warns Shinichi to take good care of his daughter and leaves, mumbling complaints all the all the while.

It turns out to be one of those weeks.

Ran studies as she makes breakfast and Shinichi, having gone to bed late and then dragged himself up at the earliest hour he could stand, pours over files from the latest murder case, yawning every other page.

It's tough. Having missed nearly an entire year of high school, Shinichi has to work at double the pace to graduate on time. Between schoolwork and cases, there's barely any time to sleep. Each day is a battle. He goes to school, and then to the latest crime scene. Some days he's lucky, and it's over quickly, but other days he stumbles home an hour or two past midnight (she waits up occasionally and helps him with his homework as he mechanically reheats dinner. Other days she's out before he even opens the door).

Ran is the same, studying long hours for her finals and spending almost the same amount of time at her judo practicing for the next competitive season. There aren't enough minutes in a day.

So they steal moments like this. Hands linked across the table, sharing companionable silence, they take on their separate worlds together.

He gives her a sleepy smile when she (much more awake because she actually went to bed at a decent hour) finally takes pity on him and goes to make coffee, pressing a cup of the steaming liquid into his hands. Ran rolls her eyes fondly at his murmured "thank you" and bleary, grateful gaze, and they return to silence. She has the last pages of the chapter to read, and Shinichi's finally beginning to see the semblance of a pattern in the victim profiles.

Unfortunately, it doesn't last for long. Her phone beeps from across the room, and she has to pull her hand out of his grasp, putting her book in her bag and reaching across the table to turn her alarm off.

"I have to go." She explains, shrugging into her jacket. "Tanaka-sensei wants to talk about the book work before class starts."

"Okay," Shinichi replies, barely looking up.

"Bye," Ran smiles as she gets up, reaching over to press a kiss to his hair (wild and sticking in every which direction because he hadn't bothered to find a comb).

"Bye," He absently catches her hand and squeezes before letting go, eyes still glued to the case files. "Love you."

She says something he doesn't quite catch.

He hums a response. And then she leaves. He continues to sit at the kitchen table, drinking coffee for another hour or two before calling Megure about his ideas concerning the murder and then leaving for school.

In short, an average morning.

It takes him eleven hours, twenty two minutes and fifty eight seconds to realize exactly what he said, and he startles out of his seat mid-deduction (because of course, this revelation has to come when he's in the middle of a case), cracking his head against the roof of the car en route to the police station. Megure gives him a weird look when he asks the cab driver to stop, but he doesn't care because then he gets out and he's running down the street in the opposite direction toward the sunset as fast as his legs will carry him. His mind is running faster, a trainwreck of words jumbled together in odd strings that sound surprisingly like "shit I said the words shit did she say anything back? shit shit shit it was too casual shit stupid Shinichi's brain being too stupid to multitask I'm never going to speak again-and what did she say?"

He runs nearly all the way back to the Mouri Detective Agency before he remembers that Ran's probably still at the judo, turns around, veers down the street and starts running again.

Shinichi makes the distance between the agency and the judo in the record time of fifteen minutes, charges past the receptionist in the front desk and down the hall to the practice room he knows she occupies from the years of experience he's had walking her home.

She's roundhouse kicking a sandbag when he flings open the doors. Ran blinks at him owlishly, brows furrowed. "-Shinichi?"

"I'msorryIshouldhaveboughtyouflowersfirstthisisprobablynotwhatyouwerehopingforbutanywaycouldyoumaybetellmewhatyousaidbecause-"

"Slow down," Ran interrupts, half laughingly as she steps away from the sandbag, wiping the sweat on her brown with her arm, "I can't make out a word you're saying."

Shinichi turns red. Having to say it once is hard enough. He would much rather shoot himself in the foot than repeat the entire spiel now that his courage (a fickle thing. It comes when he's face to face with death and leaves when he's face to face with Ran) has gone on a walk again.

Nevertheless he repeats it all again, slowly this time, so he'll be spared a third repeating.

She's in stitches by the time it's over.

Shinichi turns bright red and privately wonders if she knows exactly how cruel she's being. He almost considers telling her as much, but then she's pulling him toward her and burying her head into his shoulder, threading her fingers into his hair and his brain short circuits. He'll blame it on the constant sleep deprivation later.

"Baka," she whispers, and he can feel the heat of her breath against the crook of his neck. "What do you think I said, great detective?"

"I know," He replies sheepishly, and is suddenly grateful she can't see his face. "But I just…." Shinichi trails off, a little helpless. He wants to beat his head against a wall. Now that he's here, he realizes that all of this is actually incredibly stupid and he should just go home and lie down and stop making a fool of himself before-

She presses her lips to his at lightning pace, and then just like that she's gone again.

It's Shinichi's turn to blink.

"For your information," Ran goes back to her sandbag, throwing a smile over her shoulder, "I said 'Love you too, deduction nut.'"

Shinichi opens and closes his mouth like a fish.

"I'll let you off the hook this time," She's still chattering brightly as she goes back into the fighting stance, "But I do expect the next declaration of love to be somewhere more romantic-" he crosses the distance between them, wild-eyed, and she yelps in surprise as he catches hold of her elbow, "Shini-"

She never gets to finish that sentence because Shinichi pulls her flush against him and gives her a proper kiss.

She doesn't practice any more that night. He doesn't call Megure about the case. There aren't enough minutes in a day, but by sheer force of will they make more minutes. Ran and Shinichi as separate entities are as stubborn as they come. Ran and Shinichi together, fingers interlocked, warm where their shoulders and their arms and their hands meet, are invincible even to the laws of time.

After all, they make the mistake of multitasking once. They're not about to do it again.


	7. and the walls kept tumbling down

**A/N: Yet another ShinRan fic where Ran barely makes an appearance :P Sorry guys, promise there will be more Ran later...and also, appearance of Kaito the Phantom Matchmaker :P I think the backstory here is that he didn't tell Aoko about being KID and then she found out in the wrong way and so she kinda...hates his guts at the moment...Side of Kaito/Aoko in this chapter!**

 **Day 7**

 **45\. Illusion**

 **1093 Words**

 **Rating: K+**

* * *

You need rest," he told her.

"Shinichi-" Her fingers dug into his palm.

"I'll stay until you're asleep."

The promise seemed to placate her. She turned with a sigh.

Silence washed over the house.

The figure bent over the bed rose slowly. The girl continued to breathe, chest rising and falling, breath heavy and deep and even.

With an inward sigh, he extricated his hand from her fingers.

"How is she?" The soft, childish voice came from the hallway.

"How do you think, tantei-kun?" The monocle that had already been placed carefully over his eye gleamed as he turned to face the light, streaming in from the open door. He stood, shrugging into a white blazer that had been, just a moment ago, blue. Kaitou Kid-Kaito Kuroba, but of course, only a handful of people knew that-ran a hand through his hair, returning it to its normal tousled state before setting the signature white hat on top of the spiky mess, pulling down the brim. "She's terrified. I don't blame her. That encounter would have terrified _me_." A smirk as he looked up. "But Shinichi Kudou managed to calm her down. Mouri-san is very attached to you."

"We grew up together."

The unasked question was loud in the silence.

"Fear not," he said to Conan, who leaned against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets, "Mouri-san suspects nothing."

"...I suppose I owe you." Light reflected off of a pair of glasses that were nearly too big for the small face it belonged to.

"Not at all," Kaito allowed himself a smirk as he swept the child in the doorway an exaggerated bow. "I'm quite flattered to have been enlisted to aid you in this illusion."

"Illusion?"

"Indeed. I have to applaud you. It's a good trick." Nearly flawless. Draw attention to him, the fake Shinichi, so that Ran Mouri wouldn't pay enough attention to suspect Conan. A diversion, in every sense of the word. "How long do you plan on performing, tantei-kun?"

Conan crossed his arms. "How long do you plan on being Kaitou Kid?"

"Ah," Kaito admitted with a shrug, poker face never faltering, "Touche."

Conan rolled his eyes. "Look, if anything, what happened tonight is evidence." He ducked around the phantom thief. "I can't ever tell Ran. If I tell her they'll kill her." Beyond the reach of the tendrils of light on the floor, Ran lay in the shadow. Her hand curled around thin air and the ghost of a smile graced her lips. "And I can't put her in any more danger. Not while I can't be there to protect her."

Kaito watched as the child-sized detective walked toward Ran Mouri slowly, and, careful not to rouse her, pulled the comforter up around her shoulders. And then, as if not quite capable of suppressing it, Conan had smiled, and bent to brush a soft kiss against her forehead.

Kaito had looked away by then. This was a moment he would not steal from them.

They fell into step, closing Ran's door behind them as they stepped out into the hall.

"So, now what? You must care for Mouri-san quite a bit if you're putting on this magic show just for her, tantei-kun." Kaito remarked casually. He remembered, with a twinge of something like pain, a time when he had been in a similar situation. Putting on a magic show, to fool one person. Granted, the situation wasn't the same-Mouri-san was more likely to forgive Kudou than Aoko was going to forgive him-and the stakes were different too.

He'd felt something tug at his heartstrings when Ran Mouri had laid eyes on him that evening and her entire face lit up. The aforementioned girl, now sleeping in a darkened room just a few feet away, reminded him achingly of Aoko, reminded him achingly of what he might have had and what he'd lost when he paid the price to continue the illusion of his identity.

It might be too late for Kaito. But it wasn't too late for Shinichi Kudou. It wasn't too late for Ran Mouri.

Conan only hummed in reply. Kaito was slipping on the signature white gloves by then-wouldn't do to leave prints lying about a detective agency after all-and couldn't help but break away from the rather melancholy turn his thoughts had taken to add, with a cheeky grin, "And to enlist the help of your arch-nemesis too."

"Don't flatter yourself." Conan snorted. "If _you_ were my arch-nemesis, I wouldn't be stuck in this mess to begin with." He pushed his glasses up his nose. They arrived at the window overlooking the street, and stood still for a moment. The street below them was empty. Soft light glowed from the streetlamps. A breeze stirred gently through the trees.

Conan pulled open the window. "You have no problem getting off roofs. I don't think you'll have a problem getting away from the window? I would let you out the front door but I don't think Oji-san would fancy being woken up at this hour by an internationally wanted thief."

"You and I, we're not quite so different," Kaito mused, as if he hadn't heard Conan.

The child-sized detective shoved his hands into his pockets and indulged a singular, "I suppose."

"So I have some advice for you, Kudou-kun." Kaito turned with a smile that was not quite a smile, and ignored Conan's protests of, " _Dammit, Kid, how many times have I told you not to-_ -"

"If you love her, let her know. You can't let her know the truth. At least let her know how you feel."

"What?" Conan sputtered, turned red, turned white, and then turned red again, "I'm not-How did you come to that conclusion-?"

Kaito stepped wordlessly onto the windowsill.

"Kid, dammit, what the _hell_ do you mean-"

And then Kaito was taking a flying leap off the edge, extending his hang glider and flying circles in the air before the Mouri Detective Agency.

He had one last magic trick prepared for the night, and was just about to initiate it when he heard Conan's voice sail above the roaring of the wind in his ears, "And since when did you start playing matchmaker anyway?"

Kaito only laughed.

And then he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Tonight, instead of the performer, Kaitou Kid was the audience. And, true to his reputation of having as good an eye for magic as for jewels, he had uncovered the greatest illusion of them all.


	8. fighting dragons with you

**A/N: haha so still Shinichi centric and also feelsy. A BOATLOAD OF FEELS DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.**

 **Day 8**

 **61\. Fairy Tale**

 **1062 Words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

She catches her mother's eye in the mirror. "Oh, Oka-san. Don't cry."

Eri moves to stand behind her daughter, lifts the white veil on the table and gently placing it over Ran's hair, and then presses a kiss to her daughter's cheek. "I hope your marriage is better than mine." The words are uttered through a throat choked with tears.

Ran smiles softly at her mother's reflection. "I hope so too."

Miles away, he is also standing in front of the mirror, knotting a familiar red bowtie with experienced fingers.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Kudou?" Hattori's already in a tux.

"I've never been more sure about anything," the smile on his lips isn't quite a smile as he turns and shrugs on his own suit jacket.

Hattori's worried, but he doesn't say a word. "We'd better go then. Wouldn't want to be late. Nee-chan would hold me responsible, and then she's going to kill me. Murder's bad luck for a wedding."

"Aren't we picking up Kazuha on the way?"

"Nah. She already went with Sonoko. I'm all yours today." Hattori gives him a cheeky wink.

Shinichi thanks god for his friends.

The ceremony is simple. When Ran Mouri, arm in arm with her father, appears at the end of the aisle, tears spring to his eyes and blur his vision and he's smiling so wide it hurts, and he blinks and he lets them fall because he doesn't want to miss a moment, not a single moment. Hattori, standing beside him, pats his shoulder assuringly. Ran almost glows as she comes down the aisle. Vows are exchanged. Shinichi's ashamed to say his eyes are still a little damp by the time it's over.

The crowd converges on the happy couple. Shinichi manages to slip away.

He allows himself a moment to compose himself.

And then he goes to find her.

She's shooing Sonoko away when he concludes his search, surprisingly alone, standing behind one of the pillars. She's bubbling breathless laughter, hair already tumbling out of its beautiful chignon, cheeks bright red from heat or from happiness, and he can't help but think that this is exactly how he'd imagined Ran as a bride, many, many years ago, the bygone years when they danced around each other and played games with each other that amounted to nothing.

Ran's eyes light up for a split second when she sees him and then they grow dark again.

"Conan-kun," the smile on her face is bittersweet, "My, you've grown up."

It's been eight years since he left. Eight years since he cut the invisible red thread between them, cut Shinichi Kudou out of her life, and he's seventeen again. Seventeen, and just as helpless now as he was the first time.

"I know," Shinichi forces the words past his lips in answer to her unasked question. "I get it a lot. Everyone says I'm the spitting image of Shinichi-nee-chan."

"Ah, but you're a better friend than him," Ran reaches over to ruffle his hair, with some difficulty, because now that he is his full height again, he's a head taller than her. The gesture is so familiar Shinichi almost chokes. "You're here. He's off on some case across the ocean." A laugh, eyes averted, like it's a private joke shared between her and the bitterness in the air. "It's always a case."

"Actually," he says, swallows down the torrent of things he wants to say to her. "I'm here to deliver Shinichi-nee-chan's wedding gift."

"That baka. If he'd just shown up…."

"I know." He tries to interject, but it's like the floodgates have opened and she can't seem to stop.

"Disappears for ten years, ten whole years, leaves me behind, leads me on, tells me all of these things and then never-"

"I know-"

"And then, years and years and years later, he doesn't show up to my wedding, even though he _promised_ -"

"Ran!"

She looks up at him with wide eyes. Her eyes grow even wider when she realizes that he is holding the invitation she'd handwritten and personally delivered to the post office for the Kudous.

For a moment neither move.

And then wordlessly, he pulls her into his arms. He knows it's selfish. By god, he knows it's selfish, but it's been ten years since he's been selfish and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, the universe wouldn't begrudge him this one moment.

"Conan-kun-" her voice has no conviction.

"Shhh." If she calls him that one more time his heart might burst. "I'm keeping my promise." His voice is by her ear, as close as the last time he called so many years ago to tell her that Shinichi Kudou isn't coming home, and his breath stirs the loose hairs at the nape of her neck. "The last promise." He leaves a kiss there, lips grazing her earlobe. "I'm sorry Ran. You never wanted to solve this mystery. Now you have."

" _Shinichi-"_

He pulls back. The illusion is over. He takes her hand, bows low, and presses a kiss to her palm.

"I hope you live happily ever after."

He turns and leaves.

She never finds him again. He fades out of her life, like a ghost, and she stops trying after a while.

If this is a fairy tale, the curse on the prince should have been broken in the very last minute. If this is a fairy tale, the princess should have changed her mind. If this is a fairy tale, he would have turned the hands of time, turned the world upside down, fought dragons and dabbled in the most dangerous magic, anything to change what the story has become.

But this isn't a fairy tale, and he's never had a choice.

Their lives are just a story. And Shinichi is determined that his presence will fade into the bygone years of Ran's life, photographs and letters and pleasant memories she'll one day share, pointing to the photo on her desk, at the smiling boy with his arm looped around the girl in the dress in the best days of their lives and she'll say to her children's children, " _I might have loved him once._ "

He hopes it's not selfish to hope that she remembers. He hopes it's not selfish to hope that her happily ever after is only the beginning.


	9. lucky to be coming home someday

**A/N: So I took quite some liberties with this prompt...but, the shinigami of Beika needs a lucky charm...and who better than his abnormally lucky girlfriend?**

 **Day 9**

 **41\. Teamwork**

 **2062 words**

 **K+**

* * *

He solves an average of three murder cases a day. She folds more than that, smoothing and shaping paper into wings and graceful, extended necks, listening and soothing and lulling him to peace when he stumbles home at night, haunted by lifeless eyes and blood soaked carpets. Shinichi never says a word, but Ran knows what he's afraid of. She knows that death stalks their every step, always looming behind them, behind _him._

People ask if she's aiming to make a thousand cranes and then ask for a wish, and the underlying pity isn't lost on her. She doesn't tell them that she already has. They ask how she can deal with this-with heinous crimes around every corner, each murder more gruesome than the next. Ran just smiles and says that she's used to seeing death, being a detective's daughter.

She doesn't tell them that the first time they meet it's because he saves her from a kidnapper. Doesn't tell them that the first murder they encounter, he's just thirteen. Doesn't tell them that when a kid with glasses appeared on the day Shinichi went missing, she knew that they were one and the same because the rate at which people dropped dead once "Conan-kun" was around increased tenfold.

The first thing she ever makes for him is a cherry blossom. She starts folding again, a month after the disappearance of Shinichi, and tucks the creations into _his_ pockets, _his_ bag, anything to keep _him_ safe.

At the first thousand paper cranes, bodies stopped falling out of closets. An entire vacation passes, a spell of silence. No one dies on the cruise Eri takes them to. Of course, when they get back, there's a woman dead on the front steps, but Ran is glad for the peace that she had.

At the second, the man who was poisoned by his wife died two restaurants down the street instead of the next table over. They're in Osaka with Heiji and Kazuha, and the high school detective of the west remarks that it's amazing "considering that Kudou is usually such a death magnet-er, I mean, kudos for not being a death magnet, kid!"

In a way it's almost harder now that he stubbornly keeps up the facade of being a grade schooler. She can see it eating away at him inside, the considerations that he always made, even before "Shinichi" went away and "Conan" walked into her life.

Ran keeps an eye on him. Shinichi's mere presence attracts death-and he's tried to leave many times. She remembers back to when she's younger, when he pushed her away, only to crack and tell her the truth when she'd cried and asked him why he hated her. He'd said that he didn't want to endanger the people he cared about. That was why he lived by himself. That was why he didn't have too many friends. That was why he took on the world alone.

She told him she didn't care. She doesn't care now. The thought of him alone-especially now that he's so small and helpless-pains her beyond any sort of harm that could be inflicted on her own person by being near him.

Ran doesn't tell anyone, especially not him, that she's started on the next thousand and that she hopes at three thousand paper cranes, enough luck to last for both their life times and then some, she'll be able to wipe away the dark half moons beneath Shinichi's haunted eyes and ease the tension out of his shoulders (the look he wears on most days, shielded behind glasses and a calculating gaze, is much too painful for a seventeen year old to bear, much less one that looks like a first grader).

So she smiles and she keeps making cranes, fingers worrying at edges of paper, of napkins, of anything she can get her hands on at the moment. He thinks she doesn't notice, but Shinichi works constantly too. As if throwing himself into the fray is better than waiting until _it_ catches up with him.

He never tells her. She knows why, and she knows that he knows she's already figured it out.

It's worse for him than it is for her. At least, in a way, Ran knows it's guaranteed he'll come home in one piece. Shinichi has no such surety, and, drunk on exhaustion and the nausea in his stomach of having been caught up in yet another murder, far away from where she could squeeze his hand and he could squeeze back, he calls her in the middle of the night, once.

" _We shouldn't be doing this_ ," He says, and on that night he comes dangerously close to telling her everything, dangerously close to breaking down in tears. _"I shouldn't be doing this. God, if anything happens to you…."_

" _When are you coming home?"_ She interrupts and asks, like she always asks, cuts him off in the middle of that "if," cuts that possibility out of mind completely.

He never replies but he does return an hour later, door closing quietly behind him, calling an "I'm home. Sorry for making you worry, Ran-neechan," over his shoulder, peering up at her through glassy eyes.

She calls him an idiot with more vehemence than usual. That night neither sleep, swathed in blankets sitting side by side, one tall and one short silhouette on the living room sofa, watching one show or another, and it seems like they'll never leave, but then someone screams and Kogoro Mouri's dashing out the door because of course, there is no better time to poison someone than at the crack of dawn and it's a murder, and " _Ran, call the police."_

She pleads off and stays in the agency while her father and "Conan" take care of it. Ran's starting breakfast in the kitchen when a round of bullets rip through the floorboard in the living room and she drops the frying pan with a loud crash.

Someone's shouting her name and then that same someone is tearing up the stairs. She looks up and he's at the door, glasses half falling off his face, panic evident in his eyes.

Turns out it's a murder-suicide-and to keep the police away from him, the murderer had fired a round of bullets into the ceiling.

She thinks that's what does it in the end, because when she wakes up the next morning, Shinichi's gone. No note. He stops calling, too.

Ran and her father look. She looks especially in places the real him might think to go. Dr. Agasa seems to know something, and Haibara Ai goes missing a day later.

She calls Hattori-kun a week in, finally having enough. She explains almost all of it-he stops her before she can tell him that she knows who Conan really is. The Osakan boy on the other end of the line swears up a storm, and tells her to stay exactly where she is. An hour later he's pulling up to the Mouri Detective Agency, a distinct lack of Kazuha behind him, parking the bike with reckless abandon and dashing up the steps. He has his shinai and he locks the doors, draws the curtains close before he tells her _everything_.

Surprisingly, she doesn't cry at the end. Doesn't rage. Doesn't do anything except sit, worrying at the edges of the paper crane she'd folded while Heiji explained.

And then she looks up and looks him in the eye, firm. "I want to help."

He hesitates. Wants to say something.

She stares him down, and she can physically see his internal struggle.

"Kudou didn't even tell _me_ …...I don't think he wants you to come. I don't think he wants anyone to come…." The most important bit goes unsaid.

 _I don't think he wants anyone he cares about to be near enough to him to die._

She waves the paper crane at him, smiling. It's the last crane. It's _time_.

Her luck has always been better than his. Better than most people's. Three thousand cranes. One more wish. She wishes that it's enough to give her luck to him-to balance it out.

Heiji agrees to investigate with her.

It's a long time before she sees Shinichi again. Three months of peace. Three months of life without murder, without heists or crime or danger. Three months of planning, of tracking, of utilizing every tool at their disposal to find him and bring him home.

When they search for him the police are behind them and it's all over-the war is done. The black organization will be gone by the end of the night. The outcome has been determined. But his fate has not.

When she finally finds him, he's standing at the end of the alley, staring defiantly at the sky as a red laser point settles between his eyes and she's running as far and as fast as her legs will carry her and then she's leaping through the air and-

She hears the bullet before she registers anything else. There's no crack of discharge-silenced, a sniper on the roof, like she'd thought when the red laser point appeared-Chianti? Korn?

His eyes widen as she slams into him and she can make out her name on his lips-they crash and his glasses shatter and he's wriggling against her-" _Let me go before they kill you too"_ -and she hears the whizzing of another bullet.

The red dot is somewhere on her, she knows. There isn't time to get them both safely out of the way-the bullet is whizzing toward her-

Pinned to the ground beneath her, Shinichi's begging her to get out of the way-

And then, by some strange, unforeseen miracle, it curves.

It curves wide in the air, grazes the edge of a wall, bounces off a piece of scrap metal on the ground, and rebounds in a different direction.

"Mouri-san!" someone's yelling, and then there is cursing from the rooftop. A figure in black is dragged off the rooftop and the gun in her hand wrestled away by an officer.

When they come to take them to an ambulance, Ran is still clinging tightly to her charge-the boy in her arms is crying, saying her name over and over like it's a miracle.

No one breaks anything that night. No one gets shot. No one dies. And when she wakes up the next day Shinichi Kudou, in his old body, is sitting in a chair by her bed.

She reaches over to squeeze his hand (now thankfully the same size as hers) and he startles awake.

Wordlessly and smiling, she reaches into the drawers in her bedside table and she retrieves the crane, the last crane, the one that's supposed to make it all better. Ran presses it into Shinichi's palm and folds his fingers over it.

"Don't you ever," She says, as stern as she can be on a bright, sunny morning like this one, "Ever do that to me again."

He chuckles-the first real laugh she's heard in a long time-and tugs her to her feet, threads his fingers between hers and presses a kiss to her forehead.

"I mean it." Ran isn't sure if he gets it, the baka he is. "I don't care that death follows you wherever you go-I don't care that someone always dies when you're out, I don't care that I could be in danger-it's worth it." And then, quietly, she adds. "You're worth it. And if anyone can change your luck through sheer stubbornness, I can."

"Somehow," He says, half smiling, "I think the universe agrees with you." And then he's tugging her down stairs and throwing the front door open.

"A new world awaits-one without death, hopefully, at least, not any time soon-would you like to come with me?"

She laughs and practically drags him outside.

They spend that day-and then many other days-like that. Walking through the street, hand in hand, his arm casually swinging around her waist, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt when she takes his arm.

Bodies stop dropping out of closets.

People stop keeling over in restaurants.

The shinigami of Beika has found his lucky charm. And she plans to stick around for a long, long time.


	10. we stayed up talking in circles

**A/N: Some super fluffy fluff to make up for melancholy mood that's been in the last couple of chapters!**

 **Day 10**

 **65\. Horror**

 **842 words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

The creaking as a door opened somewhere in the distance woke him, and in the time it took his brain to fully catch up with his state of consciousness, he thought he could make out shuffling footsteps in the hall as well.

Shinichi groaned and turned to look at the clock. 2:05 a.m. _Goddamn it_. He flopped back onto the mattress, throwing an arm over his eyes, hoping sleep would reclaim him soon.

"Hey, Shinichi?" His own door creaked open and her voice came in a whisper from the doorway. "Are you awake?"

"Well, I am now," he couldn't quite keep the irritation from his voice as he shifted to regard her.

"Sorry." Ran said quietly, looking away as she crossed the distance between them. A beat later, "I couldn't sleep. Do you mind?"

They stared at each other for a moment.

And then he sighed, rubbing his eyes as he sat up, tugging her toward him. "Come on, you."

She let him draw her under the blankets and into his arms, burying her face in the groove between the crook of his neck and his pillow.

"It's the horror flick Sonoko made you watch, isn't it?" Shinichi asked, after a while. Ran could feel his voice rumbling in his chest, and it tickled in a funny sort of way as he spoke.

She offered a sheepish smile, peering up at him. "Yes?"

"What happened?"

"Doesn't matter. It was silly, but I just…" She shuddered subconsciously.

Shinichi sighed, tightening his arms around her. "You should stop doing that to yourself."

"You know how Sonoko is...doesn't take no for an answer…"

"Still, I don't get why you're scared of ghosts," he mumbled into her hair. "You could just...I dunno, roundhouse kick it."

"I can't roundhouse kick something that goes through walls, Shinichi."

"And it's not like you don't see dead bodies on a daily basis." He continued like he hadn't heard her. "Murder always just around the corner, and you're scared of _ghosts_?"

"It's _precisely because_ I see dead bodies on a daily basis that I'm scared of ghosts!" She protested, swatting at his chest.

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. "I hate to break this to you, but if the spirits of the recently departed are really roaming the earth searching for vengeance, bunking with the death magnet isn't really the safest course of action you could take."

Ran mumbled something unintelligible and burrowed further into him.

"What's that?"

"...It's just that whenever you're around, ghosts turn out to be just plain, ordinary murderers and-"

"Idiot, you'd prefer real life serial killers to ghosts?"

"What I was trying to say before you so rudely interrupted me," She glared up at him, "Is that I can deal with those. And besides," she added, eyes softening as she looked away again, "You just…. _feel safe._ "

"Do I now?" Shinichi was doing the cheshire cat grin, propping himself up on his elbows to look at her.

"Don't let it get to you head," She flushed and snapped, turning around so that her back faced him.

"I won't," he promised as he pulled her back into his arms, her back pressed against his chest. "Now go to sleep. Those vengeful spirits rely on me to solve their murder cases and get their justice, so I doubt they'll touch my girlfriend."

He thought he heard her whisper his name in conjunction with some choice insults, and lovingly dropped a kiss into her hair.

They lay in silence, her hands tucked beneath her cheek, his arms wound around her waist.

"...Come to think of it, your dad's going to kill me tomorrow. And then _I'll_ be a ghost." Her breath was just starting to even when he spoke again.

"Shinichi," Ran shifted to give him a pointed look over her shoulder.

He laughed. "Ok, ok." And then he couldn't resist but to add, "If I really do become a ghost though, I'll let you practice that roundhouse kick on me."

She flicked him in the forehead. "Baka. Go to sleep."

"Wasn't I just saying that to you?"

She kissed him to shut him up and then turned back around, and, sharing in each other's warmth, sleep claimed both of them. Peace washed over the silence. All was well, ghosts or not.

Well, at least until Kogoro Mouri got up, realized Ran wasn't in her room, went across the hall to Shinichi's and then started yelling every swear word under the sun at the top of his lungs first thing in the morning.

* * *

OMAKE TIME

"Did Nee-chan just _roundhouse kick_ the _seven foot tall abominable snowman,"_ Hattori's tone was incredulous, "Because she thought he was going to eat you?"

"...Uh...Yes?" Shinichi looked up from where he had been kneeling, bandaging her (most likely broken) toes.

"Ow," Ran protested, "Ow ow ow."

"You should've seen what happened to the other guy," Hattori said, a little _too_ gleefully, "I think you broke his _face_."

"...Guess you _can_ roundhouse kick ghosts after all," she remarked, after a long while.

"I told you so," Shinichi grinned up at her, surging to his feet to press a kiss to her cheek.

Ran turned bright red and resisted the urge to roundhouse kick _him_.


	11. slow down we've got time left to be lazy

**A/N: this chapter is to make up for Chapter 8 because weddings aren't supposed to be sad**

 **Day 11**

 **100\. Relaxation**

 **Words: 1036**

 **Rating: K+ (there isn't anything suggestive really. They're sharing a bed but nothing's inappropriate. It's really just a lot of cuddling)**

* * *

Early morning light fell through the curtains and across her face, searing red into her eyelids. Even only barely awake, she could feel the pleasant lull of sleep evaporating, and she curled her toes, wishing to hold on to it longer. Ran had never expected to sleep so well, much less feel so safe, in a country and room not her own.

But, then again, her first coherent thought told her, the arms wrapped loosely around her middle and his lanky legs tangled with hers might have had something to do with that. She opened her eyes reluctantly, groaned, closed them again, and burrowed further into the figure she'd been resting her head against just moments ago.

He was staring at her.

"What are you looking at?" Ran mumbled sleepily to his chest, too lazy to lift her head and look him in the eye.

"You," he replied without missing a beat, voice warm and rough from disuse.

"You're an idiot." As much as she enjoyed the fact that they were now at liberty to be as ridiculously in love as possible around one another, it was way too early to be this much of a sap. "Shut up and let me go back to sleep."

Beside her, Shinichi chuckled.

"Someone's grumpy about getting up." The vibrations of his voice buzzed against her cheek even as his thumb brushed past her temple, smoothing the errant strands of hair away from her eyes, breath warm against her ear. "Oh how the tables have turned."

"Leave me alone. I'm allowed to laze around once in a while." She shifted a little, and then sighed, now involuntarily awake, and rolled over to balance her chin between her hands, peering at him through her lashes. "I should hope you don't plan on making me get up early." A soft smile flitted into her face, despite the peevish tone to her voice. "It's not quite what I signed up for when I said 'I do' at the altar yesterday."

"Hmm," Shinichi tapped his chin, pretending to think. "No," a smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, "But, you did promise to have and to hold." His arms around her waist tightened and he drew her to him, burying his face in her hair. "So I guess you're going to have to stay and hold me until I decide I want to get up."

"Shinichi!" She laughed in protest, half-scolding. "We'll never get anything done that way. You're a sloth, unless there's a murder case."

"Mmm. We'll just never get up then."

"As if. You're as bad as Hattori-kun when it comes to food." She nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck.

"Can we please not mention Hattori while we're on our honeymoon?" He groaned. "Or make comparisons between the two of us?"

"I guess." she allowed with a grin. "You're just sore that he beat you to proposing."

There had been a grand east versus west showdown when allegedly (according to Ran's very slippery source-a jewel-stealing magician by the name of Kaito Kuroba) Heiji and Shinichi met at a jewelry shop that specialized in wedding rings-and then proceeded to have a yelling match over the counter, much to the dismay of the clerk, about who was going to propose to their respective girlfriend first.

Surprisingly, to everyone except Ran (who had yet another inside source...a certain Kazuha Toyama, who was more than happy to help), Heiji managed to get his act together a whopping thirteen hours before Shinichi did.

Shinichi turned bright red. "I am not sore-"

"Sonoko and I bet on it."

He choked as he looked down at her. "You-you bet on-us?"

"Yup. I won."

"...is that why you kept running off on me every time I was about to propose?"

"...Yes." Ran had the decency to blush. "But I also wanted revenge for how long you kept me in the dark about the Conan thing."

Shinichi groaned when he realized that nine times out of ten foiled proposal moments had been interrupted when Ran got up and rather cheerily proclaimed that she was going to the bathroom. Cruel, but it wasn't like he didn't deserve it. Still, he put his hand over his heart and feigned a hurt expression. "Really, Ran. You wound me."

"I'm sorry," she exclaimed, biting back a smile, "It was worth it to see the look on your face."

He frowned. "Do you know how many times my heart leaped to my throat when I thought _this is it_ and then you left and I had to swallow it back down again?"

Ran leaned down, laughing, to tuck her head back beneath his chin. "I don't know what you were worried about." She muttered, "We always knew I'd say yes. I don't think there was any doubt after the Conan fiasco."

"You waited." He fiddled fondly with the ends of her hair.

"And then you waited. Although you deserved that."

"I suppose I did. We've come a long way, haven't we?"

She hummed in agreement.

"Ran?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you said yes."

"...So am I, idiot."

He made a happy noise in the back of his throat and closed his eyes again.

The two of them lay wrapped in each other's arms for a few minutes longer.

And then Ran untangled herself from Shinichi and got to her feet. It amused her to no end that he didn't start whining until, because she hadn't unpacked yet and had no proper clothes ready, she settled for pulling the blanket off the bed and wrapping it around her shoulders. He sat up with a scowl, which evaporated again when she pressed her lips to his.

"Good morning, husband." She said as she pulled away, smiling softly.

He grinned up at her. "Good morning, wife."

A moment of silence in which everything was right with the world.

And then: "Still," she remarked with a snort, sitting down next to the window. "I can't believe you brought us to London."

"...it's because I'm an incredibly romantic individual and wanted to take you back to where I first confessed-"

She gave him a look that he would become very, very familiar with in the rest of his life. "We both know it's the Holmes Museum you really wanted to visit again, you mystery otaku."


	12. we're not broken, just bent

**A/N: Wheeew I'm back guys! Concerning this one: I always think about what would happen if Ran walks in on Shinichi changing back into Conan, and this is the result. Now, usually most of the stuff I read on this subject turns into two scenarios: a) Ran is super pissed and cuts Shinichi out of her life entirely and everything is angsty for a long while, or, b) Ran completely understands and she forgives him immediately. Though I prefer the former and the latter not so much...I think a mixture of the two is better? Because Shinichi does some pretty crappy things, but I think Ran...has enough emotional sensitivity and knowledge to be able to figure out that she gets why he does it. And I think, especially in a case where she figures it out while he's still dealing with it, she'll be able to prioritize (help him get out of being murdered first, yell/threaten bodily harm at him later).While she wouldn't forgive him just like that, I don't think she'd just start hating him either. So what I was going for is that...she's angry, and she's hurt, and she won't be able to trust him for a while. But she's...sticking around. Because no matter how mad you are at someone you love, you still love them. :P**

 **Day 12**

 **42\. Standing Still**

 **Words: 2137**

 **Rating: K+ (for a few "damn"s being thrown around!)**

* * *

Between solving the case, apprehending the murderer and then him being rushed off on an ambulance, Ran doesn't get any chance to talk to him, properly.

He runs off again as soon as he's discharged from the hospital, and she follows him partly because she knows if he continues like that he'll rip out the stitches and partly because she doesn't understand _why,_ and when it finally, _finally_ happens, she isn't sure if she's relieved or not.

An entire year away boils down to this. A year spent worrying, waiting, wondering if she's grasping at straws or if her every predilection is true. Her heart is in her throat.

He isn't running. He isn't ducking into another shelter, hiding behind another shield with which to fool her. He's standing still at the end of the alley, blood running down his leg in rivulets, desperation growing on his face.

Like she has thought, the wound reopened. Like she has thought, he's been cornered.

Ran is sure that this is it. One way or another, today, it ends.

His eyes meet hers and she can see the helplessness, the unspoken plea, _please, turn around, walk away, just don't look_ \- but she stares back resolutely, and then he doubles over, clutching at his chest. His face twists in pain and she steps forward to catch him, pulling him into her.

 _Oh god, this is it._

Maybe she _is_ crazy. God, maybe she's been crazy all along. And maybe, now that she's here, she doesn't want to know, not _really_ , but it's too late to walk away. He's in _so much pain_ and she couldn't stop herself from carding her fingers through his hair soothingly, though his skin burns beneath her hands, wouldn't stop herself from holding him as he trembles, kissing away the tears that escape from the corners of his eyes and slip down his cheek.

The steam rises and it stings a little. Or maybe that's her own tears.

"Ran," he says, breathless as he stills.

Her eyes are squeezed shut and she holds her breath but she knows the form encircled by her arms is not that of seventeen-year-old Shinichi Kudou.

She's thought about this so many times-this exact moment in time when for once she's the detective, with all the facts, with the one, singular truth. But she's never thought about how she feels about the truth, never thought that she would ever get this far-and now that she's here, what would she say? What would she do? She should be angry. She should be furious. But she doesn't have the energy to be.

After a year of not knowing, of guessing and doubting and _missing him_ , she's just…

Tired.

Ran forces herself to open her eyes. Here is her best friend, swimming in clothes that are at least three sizes too big, looking even more childish now that he's missing his glasses, blood staining his jeans and the pavement. Edogawa Conan peers up at her and something about the look on his face breaks her heart.

She smiles.

"So I was right." Finds herself murmuring, with none of the triumph that she has thought many times before she would be able to muster.

Shinichi looks terrified.

She lifts him into her arms.

"Ran-I-"

"We have a lot to talk about." Ran keeps her voice warm and even, clamping an iron fist around the tears that threaten to fall.. "But we need to get you back to the hospital first."

"...we can't." He sounds resigned. "It'll be too easy for _them_ to make the connection between Shinichi Kudou and Conan Edogawa. Take me to Agasa's. Haibara will know what to do."

Ran changes direction wordlessly.

They don't speak.

When she knocks on the door, Agasa opens it and his eyes grow wide.

Ran doesn't say much of anything except a few terse words about the injury, and hands Shinichi over to the doctor. She allows Ai Haibara to lead her to the living room and shove a cup of tea into her hands. She holds it until it turns cold while Ai disappears into the back room.

Neither the doctor nor Ai reappear, but Shinichi does, an hour or two later, in normal-sized clothes with his glasses sitting on his nose. The angry gash on the side of his leg has been sewn closed again, but she can still smell blood in the air.

He hobbles to her side with a little difficulty, and sits down wordlessly beside her. She lets him.

They sit for a while. She stares straight ahead despite feeling his gaze on her. Ran's hands fist into the material of her jeans, clenching so hard her knuckles turn white.

Tentatively, he reaches out to cover her hand with his own smaller one. "...I'm sorry, Ran. I didn't mean for you to find out like...this..."

"You never meant for me to find out at all."

She wishes he would protest. He doesn't.

Ran swallows down the lump in her throat. "How long were you planning on keeping it from me?"

"As long as it's necessary."

She doesn't slap him because he's still a child. Why is it necessary at all?

"I should have known." Instead she sets the untouched tea down on the table. Her voice is steadier than she imagines. "Hattori-kun, always calling you 'Kudou.'" Inhale. Exhale. Emotions later. Questions first. "Explain."

"I stuck my nose somewhere it didn't belong." Conan- _Shinichi_ -begins helplessly. "They decided to get rid of me, and they fed me an experimental drug with an unexpected side effect. Ironic," He laughed. The sound was grating to her ears. "They thought they'd take my life away, and they did, just in a different sense."

That day at Tropical Land.

"Are you...still…?"

"In danger? Yes. Every second of every day. If they ever find out that Shinichi Kudou isn't dead...if they ever find out that Conan Edogawa is that very same person…You see, I couldn't even go to the police."

"Then why didn't you…?" She cuts herself off. "Who else knew, Shinichi? Were you concerned that I couldn't keep a secret?" Ran shakes, whether from the shock of the evening or anger, she can't tell. "A secret your _life_ depends on?"

"Ran…" He scrubs a hand over his face and he looks so tired. More tired than any seven year old should be. "They didn't find out because I wanted them to...there was hakase...but I couldn't do it by myself...My parents found out through him. Haibara is in the same situation as me and Hattori deduced it."

"And? You fessed up, didn't you? You didn't bend over backwards to lie to him-god, I don't want to ask how you managed to make Conan and Shinichi appear in the same room-You made me think I was crazy, when all along, I was right. _What_ was so important that you _had_ to _lie_ to me, your _best friend,_ for an entire year-"

"Your life depended on it _,_ " He says quietly.

She bites down so hard on the insides of her cheeks she draws blood. "You drove me _crazy_ -I was so worried about you-and the other you-and I just-every time you called, I thought-how could you do this to me?"

A pause. "I couldn't...just...tell you. These people who want me dead...they're dangerous, Ran. More dangerous than anything I've ever encountered before. They wouldn't hesitate to kill you if they thought you were associated with me in anyway."

She breathes deeply through her nose, because she refuses to cry. Not this time. She yells instead. "So you come to live under my roof- _pretending to be someone else_ -still in danger. Did you ever _think_ that if they found out they'd come after us anyway? Did you ever think... _that we had a right to know_?"

He doesn't meet her eyes.

"I'm not helpless! My father is not helpless! If we're in danger, we at least deserve to-"

" _I was scared,_ " he shouts.

She finds herself staring into his eyes.

"I _am_ scared. God. I'm absolutely terrified." Shinichi runs a shaking hand through his messy hair. "That day-that day I should have died-I thought I was dying and I thought about you-but then I woke up in a child's body and every time I even considered telling you I was scared that-that you'd-" He cuts himself off with a sharp inhale.

She hears him breathe. Eventually, the boy beside her stills again.

"I'm sorry for all of this. For lying to you. For leaving you in the first place. But I can't let you die, Ran. I won't-I can't risk it. I can't risk you." He stops, like the words are choking in his throat, for a single, breathless moment. And then: "I love you."

Wordlessly, Ran gets to her feet.

A year comes down to this. Comes down to a web of lies strung so intricately it loops right back to the start, coming apart with a single tug.

How can she trust anything he says anymore? How can she trust her heart? And how can she trust his, though he gouges it out and hands it to her on a silver platter?

"I can't do this," the words tumble from her lips.

He watches her with tired eyes, and doesn't say anything.

The pain in her chest is spreading. Pain for him. Pain for herself. Pain for a year spent in deceit. Ran starts for the door.

The knob burns beneath her hand.

But she doesn't turn it.

If she walks away now...what happens?

What happens to him? What happens to her?

What happens when she stops waiting and he stops hoping?

What happens if she decides she hates him?

Shinichi doesn't stir from where he sits. It's like he's a rag doll.

If she walks away now he'll stay away. If she chooses an exit, he'll understand. And he'll cooperate, no matter how much it hurts him.

She's hurt. Angry. Shocked that the person she lo-but that doesn't matter now, does it?

If she chooses to walk away now it all ends. No more waiting. No more lies.

But.

 _But._

Ran stands still.

She stands still because she knows that despite the pain, despite the anger and the tears and the exhaustion, she can't hate him. Because she knows if she turns her back now she won't come back, and he'll be alone and she'd be lying when she says she can just...stop caring.

After everything, she loves him. And she's tired. So tired. Of losing. Of missing.

"Unlike you...I'm not...good at lying." Her eyelashes are wet and glistening when she turns around, and she drags her sleeve hard across her face, extending her other hand toward him.

He stares.

"Come on," She says, fiercely.

Hesitantly he gets to his feet.

"Let's go home."

Shinichi takes her hand. He doesn't say anything, but he holds on to her like he won't ever let go again.

She exchanges a few words with Agasa and Ai. Oddly enough, she doesn't remember much of what is said.

Outside, the night is still. The stars still shine and the breeze sweeps her tears away, cool on her cheek.

"I'm beyond angry at you," Ran says when they get out on to the street, "And...it'll be a while before I can trust anything you say at face value again, but I just want you to know that I don't hate you."

"Ran…"

"I don't forgive you. I may not forgive you for a long while. But I _don't_ hate you." A short silence. And then she begins again. "And…no more running, yeah?"

He looks up at her, peering through his glasses.

"I'm still here. Standing still. Not running. Not leaving. I'm not giving up on you. I'm pissed, but I'm not giving up on you. So you can't either. Ok?"

Something in his eyes shift and she wonders how she could have ever doubted that Conan and Shinichi are the same person.

"...you're too good, Ran." This time, he is the one on the verge of tears. "Too damn good."

"Damn right I am." And it's bittersweet, this first time they're finally face to face, no lies, no hurt, no running away. They're on even ground again.

Standing still. Not quite meeting the other's eye, not quite holding the other's hand. Waiting for everything to come together. Waiting for the hurt to go away, waiting for the anger and the doubt and the terror and the insecurity to fade.

Because she's sure and he's sure that it all will one day. And that thought makes it worth it. The thought that beneath the lies and beneath the resentment, deep, deep down he still loves her and she still loves him, and when one day the gray clouds overhead clear, and he's able to come clean and she's able to forgive, they'll still love each other.

They're a long way from okay. Long way from trust or forgiveness. But they're standing still, together, at zero. At the start. And it's enough.

It's enough for now.


	13. we can learn to love again

**A/N: Immediate sequel to the last one~ Sorry this one isn't exactly fluffy or exactly angsty. It's somewhere in between. Which is how I wanted it it. There will probably be another one in this sequel series, where ShinRan work things out. I decided this warranted a 3 parter bc THEY NEED TIME**

 **Day 13**

 **2\. Love**

 **1486 words**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

When he comes to the next day, it's one of those rare mornings when Kogoro Mouri's already gone. Waking up is surprisingly pleasant. In the silence, it's easy to hear that outside, the birds are chirping. Some innate clock is telling him that it's early Sunday morning. Shinichi fades out of unconsciousness, to a sense of warmth and comfort that stretches through his bones.

And then the memories hit him like a brick.

He sits up.

The silence in the house suddenly presses down on him.

Forcing himself to move _slowly_ , Shinichi gets to his feet. Panic rises in his chest for no reason at all and he tries to swallow the lump in his throat as he changes out of his pajamas.

He can smell something heavenly from the kitchen even as he nears the top of the stairs, but his heart refuses to settle.

It's alright. _It's alright._

He's here. She's here. She knows. And she doesn't hate him.

 _Why doesn't she hate him?_

Shinichi Kudou understands everything he decides to put his mind to. Running the risk of sounding like a smug bastard (he may just give up on that and admit that he is one), he just has a _gift_ for _things_. Sports don't faze him, and his mind is sharper than his tongue, everything from science to literature to philosophy. He excels easily at anything, and this is a fact that has not changed significantly since his second childhood.

He may have a distinctive physical disadvantage now that he's four feet tall and scrawny all over again, but Conan Edogawa more than makes up for it by being more practiced, more perceptive, and more prepared from nearly two decades of age stacked into a seven year old body.

No, there's only one mystery he's never been able to solve.

"...Shinichi?" A soft voice comes from the kitchen.

Ran.

He pads down the stairs and rounds the corner.

She stands in the doorway, half out of her apron, and, for a moment, simply stares.

"Ran?" he prompts.

Blue eyes meet blue eyes. She blinks, and smiles, a tad too sad for his liking.

"Sorry. Just...wondering how I didn't see it earlier." Then, a beat later. "You forgot your glasses."

Shinichi paddles over to the table instead of going back upstairs, and sits down. He watches her as she returns to work, and a moment later a stack of pancakes is set in front of him. She takes her own plate, and sits down.

They eat in silence.

He thinks she doesn't catch him sneaking glances at her, but then she speaks.

"We need to talk." The sentence is carefully void of any emotion.

He tries to force his voice past the lump in his throat, and closes his eyes. Deep breaths _-_ he can't help the tiny voice in his head that says any second now she's going to come to her senses and tell him that she changed her mind after all- _deep breaths._ "Ok."

"Now that I know, things have to change."

His heart drops into his stomach.

"I will obviously have to continue calling you Conan-kun," Ran points out matter-of-factly. "I can't get used to calling you Shinichi, because the wrong name might slip out at the wrong time and then we might be in trouble. But I can't continue treating you like a little kid, either. I turned some things over in my head yesterday, and I realized it must be hard for you to keep up the act, especially at crime scenes."

He blinks. The words don't quite register in his head.

"So," She proposes, "I'm going to get out of your way at those, so you can investigate. And...I think you should let me help. With the rest, I mean. When you're in deduction mode you're not exactly careful with your cover. Which...might be why Hattori-kun figured it out so quickly. Now, I'm already in on the secret anyway, and I can't help with finding leads to the organization...so I might as well help keep your act together until it's safe for you to be you again. So when Hattori-kun is not around, if it'd be easier or safer for you, you can 'play detective' around me."

He gapes at her like a fish.

Everything he's planned to say, everything he's thought possible goes out the window. He's thought of this moment a thousand times, and every scenario has played out in his head at least once.

But Shinichi never imagines _this_.

"I'm not going to take away your bed time, because your body is smaller now, and if I'm right I think you need much more rest than you do as an adult. Besides, you never sleep as is. Coffee is also still a no, at least regularly, because I'm fairly certain the caffeine dosages you like to have are not normal for a teeanger, let alone a child. Other than that…" She pauses to think, tapping her chin and not noticing the incredulous looks Shinichi gives her. "Other than that...if you'd like, in private, you can just...call me Ran." The girl does not look at the boy across from her. "No honorific required."

For a moment neither speak.

"Ran," Shinichi chokes, tests the name on his tongue, then falls silent again.

He still can't look at her. It hurts to look at her, stings his eyes almost, leaves stars in his vision like when he looks into a light that's too bright, like when he lifts his head to look into the sun.

She misinterprets his silence. "I get that you don't want me to be caught up in this. But the second you came to my house, I _was_. And now that I'm aware, I want to help you so this can be over as quickly and quietly as possible-"

"Why?" He interrupts quietly. Something swells inside him, compels him to ask.

It's Ran's turn to blink at him. "Why what?"

His hand, small as it is, trembles, as he reaches across the table, as if to take hers, and then he thinks better of it and draws away again. Shinichi closes his eyes again, and his fingers fold into his palm so hard his knuckles turn white. "Why are you not…"

"What?"

"Yesterday-Dammit Ran," His eyes snap open. " _You should be_ -you should be yelling or screaming or-I don't know, using me as a _human karate target_. I deserve it- _hell I deserve a lot worse-"_ He chuckles darkly, cuts himself off and looks away, because he has a tirade welling in him but he can't find the words, is too tired to find the words, doesn't want to find the words, because he doesn't want her to hate him, not really, and he hates himself for that. Hates himself for being weak, for being selfish, for wanting her to keep on waiting for him even though he has no right-

"Because I want _you_ back," Ran's voice is quiet but firm. Not unkind, but not tender. Firm, and warm with some kind of strange conviction. He realizes with a pang how much the rift between them has grown in this year where he's concealed himself so close and yet so far from her, because he cannot at all read the sad smile on her face.

"I want my best friend back," she continues. "I want him back so I can yell at him and chew him out about being stupid and reckless and hiding things from me. I want him safe and home and free from the web of lies he's built to keep himself and the people around him alive. Yes, I'm angry. So angry. But I'm stupid, and I'm in love with him." She smiles again, and this time, catches his eye. "Does that answer your question?"

Oh.

 _Oh._

And really, how can he have not seen it?

Shinichi's breath catches in his chest. "-Ran-"

"You don't have to say anything now, Shinichi," Ran says softly. "I'm going to help you-and then one day, you're going to get rid of this organization for good. Then, I suppose, you can if you'd like."

Because of course, that's what love is isn't it?

Yet again, she's better than him.

"Thank you," Shinichi swallows. "I'll make it right again, I swear. I'll come back to you."

"I know," she says. "I know."

Because he loves her. And he'll fight to have the chance to love her properly, the way she deserves.

The birds chirp on an early Sunday morning. Through the window, a girl can be seen, pensive, quiet, but not unhappy, looking over her shoulder as she does the dishes. Beside her stands a boy on a stool, blue eyes glittering through glasses that were perhaps too big for his face.

Over the hill the sun begins to ascend higher and higher into the sky.


	14. written in the scars on my heart

**A/N: For those of you who follow my other fics, you know my fluff muse took a walk and so it took TWO ENTIRE MONTHS for me to wrestle this third part out of my brain. But there was yet another point I wanted to make with the chapter so I had to write it! A lot of people talk about how ShinRan is a ship that is negative for Ran, bc Shinichi does leave her behind a lot. And I get that. I really get that. Ran is like, my CHILD, so I definitely think she deserves the best. But here's the thing. Shinichi's trying to change. And he makes her happy. If Shinichi makes her happy and is consciously trying to continue to make her happy by fixing his more glaring flaws, and she's sure that she wants him, then who are we to say what is or isn't good for her?**

 **Anyway, the Ran-And-Shinichi-Forgiveness-Arc is complete! Next up, completely unrelated fluff! (hopefully). Drop a review into the box and let me know if you like it!**

 **Day 14**

 **33\. Expectations**

 **Words: 1,485**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

"What's that bastard doing here?"

"Tou-san!" Ran protests, but there's no fire.

Her father's gaze isn't angry. It isn't molten or livid, like it gets when he's going to yell and make a fool of himself or hit someone. Instead it's clear, and cold. In fact, Kogoro Mouri's face has never been this stern. "I mean it, Ran."

She sighs and looks away, brushing past him as she goes in.

A month since the truth has been revealed, Shinichi Kudou shows up at her door with a bouquet and an invitation, grinning as much as his bruised and scratched face would allow. Outwardly, everything's fine.

That's because only a select few know the real circumstances behind the disappearance of a creepy, brilliant child known as Conan Edogawa.

"You're not considering it, are you?"

She plans it herself. It's not really a matter of considering.

She shuts the door and turns the lock behind her, puts her roses in a vase of water. Ran shrugs out of her school uniform and changes into something nice. When she unlocks the door to step out again, her father's still leaning against the wall.

"I won't be making dinner today," she swallows, "But I ordered takeout and-"

"Ran," Kogoro Mouri interrupts, almost gently, like he's talking to a lost child and trying to make her understand. "He lied to you. To us. _For over a year._ He doesn't deserve you."

"I know," she manages tiredly. Her father regards her with raised eyebrows, as if expecting another response, but she doesn't say anything else. She knows he wants the best for her, and she knows it's one of the rare cases where he feels the need to act fatherly. But she _knows_ what she wants.

Downstairs, outside, _he_ 's waiting for her, she knows. And he's promised. He's promised and she's promised. So it'll be ok again.

It has to be ok again.

"I'll be back late today," Ran calls over her shoulder, forcing herself not to look back as she descends the stairs, and then closes the front door behind her, moving deliberately slow.

She takes a deep breath.

When she finally turns, Shinichi's standing there.

Relief, thawing her icy insides like the sun, floods into her system. _Thank God._

"Hey." He says softly. One of his hands is tucked into his pocket. The other reaches out hesitantly toward her, and his gaze softens almost imperceptibly when she grabs his hand and tugs him forward.

"Come on." The smile she gives him is strangely easy. "We'll be late."

They're going to dinner.

Not quite the top of Beika Central Building, because she's shyly proclaimed that she'd like to save that for the future and he's shyly agreed, but they're going to _dinner_.

Like normal people for once.

Well, as normal as it gets.

As long as his shinigami tendencies don't catch up with him.

"Maybe my luck will let up for once," he says with a grin, when she asks. Maybe they shouldn't have tempted fate. Not ten minutes later, someone drops dead.

At least he remembers to pull her chair out for her?

He tells the waiter to seal off the restaurant and call the police. Unfortunately, by then, they've recognized him as the great detective of the east, savior of the Japanese police, et cetera, et cetera.

She sighs, and shrugs. "I'll wait." And steps aside to let them drag him away.

It's taken care of rather quickly. She only has time to order for the both of them. But when Shinichi comes back, something's changed, visibly. The lopsided grin he's worn for the majority of the evening is gone, and he doesn't quite meet her eyes. The food arrives, and they eat in silence.

He doesn't say _anything._ The silence unnerves her, sends chills up her spine.

"Shinichi," Ran twiddles her fingers for a long time before she gathers enough courage to say, softly. "Are you ok?"

He looks up from the intent studying of his glass, and for one single moment, blue eyes meets blue eyes. "Uh-"

Then Shinichi cuts himself off, looks away again.

"You've barely said anything." But she doesn't get him back, just to lose him to silence. Mouri Ran knows to push now. Knows that his silence means something else entirely. Knows to have enough confidence in herself to ask for more than the face he puts on for the rest of the world.

"...I know. I'm not being very good company, huh?" Something in him deflates. The corners of his lips lift in a tired smile. "I'm sorry. For...everything."

"...Is it the case?"

"No, it's the fact that there _was_ a case," he replies, runs a hand through his hair with a groan of frustration. "It's the fact that I left you here-again. Because someone dropped dead and I just _had_ to make it my business. I left and all I could think of was-was-" He lifts his head to look at her and she knows.

A dark alleyway in an amusement park a million years ago. Curiosity that kills the cat. And then the year after-the lonely year.

She reaches across the table to take his hand.

He squeezes her fingers, closes his eyes. "Sorry. God-I'm sorry. I promised I'd make it up to you and here I am. It's like I just can't stop. I honestly thought...to do better. But I...can't."

"Who said you had to?"

"Eh?" Shinichi looks up, honestly startled.

"You don't have to change," Ran smiles, slowly, hesitating.

He doesn't seem to understand.

She tries again. "I don't mind waiting, as long as at the end of the day you come back home. Back to me."

He blushes at the implication.

Her own face is red and a little bit hot to the touch. She sighs and gets to her feet, striding over to his side of the table and nudging him over, sitting down beside him. Ran leans her head against Shinichi, presses her cheek into his shoulder to hide her own flaming cheeks. "You've always done this, detective nut. I'm used to it, and it's ok. It's part of who you are. If I didn't love that, as much as I love the rest of you, I wouldn't still be here."

"Ran," he swallows, tries to interrupt. "It's not just that-I'm-I'm not the Shinichi you knew..before. I can't be the same things he is to you."

"That's ok." She raises his hand to her lips and presses a kiss to his knuckles. "I'm not the same Ran either. We've grown up, Shinichi. For better or for worse."

He doesn't speak for a long time. Doesn't meet her eyes. His arm goes around her waist, almost like it always fit there, and they sit, side by side, hands joined, in silence. When Shinichi's gaze does settle on her, his eyes are shining and his voice is hoarse with emotion. "I really don't deserve you." he whispers, and his grip on her hand tightens fractionally.

How many times has he thought that? In darker days, counting how long she's waited, how long he's made her wait, counting how many lies he's told her and how he may very well never be able to give her what she does deserve. Even now, bruises on his face an outward mark of the demons in his head, he knows that he's not whole enough for her, that he's not the ideal that she ought to have.

She fixes him with an amused stare, as if having seen right through him. "And I'm tired of people thinking they get a say on who does and doesn't deserve me."

Then she tilts her head up toward him and presses her lips to his.

God, he's never been this selfish. On dark nights, when loneliness got to him, he wishes he could be. But he never did.

So maybe, just maybe, he can be selfish just once.

Shinichi closes his eyes and he kisses her back.

Broken shards that are glued back together will always have cracks. He's hurt her. God, he's hurt her. The shards have been embedded into her soul, drawn blood, and then taken out again. So he's done her wrong. So he doesn't deserve her.

But she wants him.

She loves him.

And in the end, that's all that matters, isn't it?


	15. kiss me like you're falling

**A/N: Some of you peeps requested t-rated fluff! And...I...don't actually know if this counts as t-rated? Lines between what is T and Not T are very blurry? I don't know if this was enough make out for all of your t-rated needs? I mean I'm awkward when it comes to writing makeouts anyway bc the kissing I include in fics is generally used as emotional punches and are not usually described in detail? Also, yes they talk a lot before any actual kissing gets done, but I stand by that consent is by far the hottest thing.**

 **Anyway, hope you guys have fun reading it. I had fun writing it, for sure! Honestly if you cross-reference my fics you find ideas being carried over and points I want to make showing up as motifs in different fics but this one was just complete utter fluff. There was no context, there was no point I was trying to make, it was just fluff. And it was great~**

 **Day 15**

 **98\. Puzzle**

 **Rating: ? I mean K+~T depends on how you rate?**

* * *

"Stupid Kudou-kun…"

Angry shove. Buckets clatter.

"Sonoko…"

"No, really." _Shove._ "What an absolute idiot!" _Shove._ "I'm gonna rip him a new one-" _Shove._ "-when he comes back."

"Sonoko, that mop's going to snap in half if you keep pushing like that."

"Running off-"

"Sonoko-"

"Leaving you _alone_ -"

"Sonoko."

"Making _me_ do the work for him-"

" _Sonoko."_

The illustrious Suzuki heiress whirled around, folding her arms. "What?" She huffed, red-faced. "I'm just being mad for you!"

"I _can_ just do it all myself, you know." Ran said, a little exasperated as she set the bucket her friend had just upturned on its bottom again. "The classroom isn't too bad today."

Sonoko glowered. "Just because your boyfriend is a complete dolt doesn't mean I'm going to be." Another vicious shove as she pushed the mop to the corner. "Honestly, there's no accounting for taste there." A dramatic sigh, a hand pressed up to her forehead, "Who would leave my _darling_ Ran-chan alone for a _corpse_?"

Ran had to fight to suppress a laugh. "I don't call him a mystery otaku for nothing, you know. He's obsessed, that one."

"You should organize a strike with that Kazuha girl from Osaka. Dealing with these detectives is obviously too taxing."

"Hmmm." Ran turned to straighten some books. "We should have a night, just the three of us. Leave Hattori-kun and Shinichi to their own devices."

"And go look for hot guys! Now you're talking!"

"...you're incurable."

"Not all of us have had husbands since kindergarten, you know."

" _Sonoko!_ "

" _Ran-"_

The door burst open behind and Sonoko jumped ten feet into the air, turned blindly and hit the figure in the doorway squarely in the head with the mop.

"...Maybe look before you attack next time?" And was met with a very irate Kudou Shinichi.

"Shinichi?" Ran giggled. She stepped forward to dry his dripping bangs, a fond smile on her face, while Sonoko fake-gagged in the corner at the display. "Didn't you have a case?"

"Mmmhmm." There was an impatient light in his eyes, sharp and excited, a look that he got often when he was right on the trail of the criminal.

"So," she prompted, carefully, a little unnerved that a gaze of such _intensity_ was trained on _her_ face, "What did you come back for?"

"Ran," He said, without any preamble whatsoever. "Can I kiss you?"

Ran's face turned lobster red in point two seconds.

"...Beg pardon?" Her voice came out more like a squeak.

Sonoko squealed. Loudly. Shinichi threw her an annoyed look.

"Ok, ok, fine." she grumbled, stalking out the door. "I'll leave you two lovebirds to your own devices."

Ran watched Sonoko's retreating back because that was easier to think about than Shinichi's face and _that stupid look in his eyes-_

"Come on," he took her arm, startling her out of her thoughts.

"Eh?"

"Knowing Sonoko, she's stalking us outside with a camera right now. There's a supply closet at the back of the classroom. If we hide behind it, she shouldn't be able to get a clear shot."

Supply closet. Back of the classroom. Hiding from Sonoko. Good. Great. This was all information she could handle at the moment. Ran stepped gingerly behind the supply closet he'd pointed out.

Outside, a muffled curse could be heard.

Right on the money. Like always.

"So."

She jumped a little at his closeness. Of course, it was only natural. To hide _behind_ the supply closet, the two of them had to fit within the space allotted to a supply closet. How did she misjudge distance and space so badly? He leaned over her now, palm pressed against the wall, and her vision was suddenly filled with Shinichi, sunlight catching on his eyes, the sharp features of his face and tendrils of hair, still wet from the mop earlier.

"Can I?" A smirk tugged at his lips. _Goddammit, stop staring at his lips-_

"Uh…" She found herself a little too dazed to answer directly. _Distract!_ Something was screaming inside her, _stall!_ "Why so sudden?"

"...I need help with a case."

"Eh?"

Shinichi sighed. "I need to test out the murderer's method. I'm ninety percent sure it works but on the ten percent that it doesn't…"

Something diminished inside her. Of course. "Oh."

It must have shown in her eyes or something.

"Baro." He read her like a book. Like always. "I could've asked Satou-san and Takagi-san to test it, you know."

"They wouldn't have done it," Ran pointed out, still pouting a little.

"They wouldn't have been that opposed." He sighed, reaching forward to smooth away the stray lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. Only now did she realize his cheeks were a little red too. "The point is...maybe I wanted to have an excuse to kiss you, ok?"

Her heart leaped to her throat. "...Shinichi?"

"It's ok if you don't want to. I can go ask Satou-san and Takagi-san," He looked away from her now, with a half-embarrassed smile as he scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about barging in. Sonoko's going to tease you because of that, isn't she-"

"Shinichi-" she began again, breathless.

"I'm also sorry about leaving you to clean alone too. I'll make it up to you and Sonoko somehow-"

"Shinichi."

"Hmm?"

"I'm not opposed."

"...What?"

"I said," Redder than before, if that was even possible, Ran reached forward, grabbed Shinichi by the lapels, and dragged him back into their safe hidden-behind-the-supply-closet haven. "I'm not opposed."

It took him a moment. "Ran…"

She pressed a finger to his lips _(his goddamn lips again)_. "This is all very new and...I just wanted to know that you really did _want_ to kiss _me_ and not just for the stupid case-Anyway, you want to kiss me, and I want you to kiss me, so let's not bother Satou-san and Takagi-san."

A moment of silence.

And then, brushing an experimental kiss on the fingertip that was still pressed to his lips. "You sure?"

It tickled a little, but in a way that made shivers run up her spine. "I'm sure."

"No regrets?" Nosing at her palm.

"No regrets."

"...Ok."

Shinichi drew her to him slowly.

Ran held her breath.

For a moment, nothing happened, and he simply looked at her, gaze traveling slowly, flitting from feature to feature at a leisurely pace, as if trying to memorize every mark on her skin, every blemish.

It was almost suffocating, the way he was looking at her.

His fingertips traced her cheek, the line of her jaw, and his thumb grazed her bottom lip as he took her chin gently, as if she were made of spun glass, tilting her face toward him. It made her just a little dizzy.

"Ran?" Blue-eyed gaze met blue-eyed gaze.

"Hmm?"

"Close your eyes."

She did.

He closed the distance between them, bracing his other arm against the wall, and pressed his lips to hers.

The world stopped turning.

Time was held captive between breaths.

Her arm wound around his neck and she pressed herself to him, fingers curling into his hair, black, silken strands warmed by sunlight falling through the window. She clung on to him like a drowning man and he kissed her like the sea, pulled her under and stole her breath away.

This was eternity. The nail of his thumb scraping against her cheek. His lips on hers, soft, slow, lazy, like they had all the time in the world.

She only had time to gasp for breath when Shinichi pulled back, whispered her name like it was sacred and kissed her again.

Her world constricted until there was nothing but him-his hand wandering into her hair, the scent of his freshly laundered shirt filling her nose, his taste on the tip of her tongue- _Shinichi_ flooded her senses, engulfed her with his warmth, filled a void in her she didn't even know existed and left her utterly defenseless.

This too, was suffocating, in a way.

She was falling, or flying, or _something_. The wind was knocked out of her chest and her knees trembled. Her head spun.

It was beautiful.

They broke apart and she stumbled into his arms. He held her flush against him, buried his face into her shoulder, his weight wrapped around her frame warm, heavy, reassuring.

"Shinichi?" Ran wondered out loud, breathless

"Mmm?" His cheek was burning as it pressed into the column of her neck, and his breath tickled at her collarbone.

She let her arms settle comfortably around him. "Nothing. I just-"

"That was-" he began at the same time.

Matching smiles appeared on their faces when they realized that what they were about to say was really the same thing.

Silence for a moment.

And then they dissolved into laughter.

"I love you," he declared as he drew back.

"I know," she tried to smooth down the hair she'd mussed, smiling softly.

For a moment they simply stared, the moment to precious to break.

And then she cleared her throat. "So. Did you get what you were looking for?"

"Huh?"

"You know, data for that case?"

"O-oh." His face turned bright red. "Um. Uh. Sure."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, look at the time," He looked down at his nonexistent watch. "I should head back before they wrap up the investigation-"

And hope Satou and Takagi were still there and willing to participate in the experiment.

Ran didn't look convinced.

Shinichi laughed nervously and made a mad dash for the door.

It's not as though he could tell her that his brain stopped working the second their lips met and then he couldn't think at all, much less about the case. And if he kept kissing her...well, if he kept kissing her, there was no telling what would happen.

That wouldn't do at all. After all, he had a reputation to keep up.

Ran stared after her (strange, but wonderful) boyfriend, grin tugging at her lips.

"Stupid deduction nut," She muttered fondly as she went to pick up the mop she'd dropped a few moments prior.


End file.
